Dr. Richard Carvajal, an oncologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, discusses the diagnosis and management of advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC), including an immunotherapy treatment option. This article also features a compilation of advanced CSCC clinical trial images associated with immunotherapy treatment.
Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is the second most common form of human cancer and has an increasing annual incidence. Each year in the United States, at least 200,000 to 400,000 new cases of cSCC are expected, and disease-related death occurs in more than 3,000 people with cSCC, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
Many patients with advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) treated with PD1 blockade, in addition to chemotherapy, experience a relapse leading to a resistance to therapy. To improve the efficacy of immunotherapy and prevent tumor relapse, researchers studying the role of cancer stem cells and the protein BMI1 have identified a potential new combination therapy to treat advanced HNSCC, the most common type of head and neck cancer.
Adults with the chronic skin condition atopic dermatitis can rest easy in the knowledge that two topical immunosuppressant medications commonly prescribed to treat the condition do not appear to increase the risk for the most common forms of skin cancer, despite package label warnings to the contrary, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) found.