A Retrospective Study on Head and Neck Cancer Cases Treated with Nivolumab and A Report of a Recurrence-Free Case After Completion of Nivolumab Therapy

Nivolumab is an immune checkpoint inhibitor that triggers a tumor immune response and has been covered by health insurance in Japan since March 2017 as a standard treatment for platinum-refractory recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancers. In the present study, we studied 30 patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer who had received treatment with nivolumab at our department between June 2017 and November 2023. The median age was 70 years, and there were 23 men and 7 women. The median overall survival (OS) was 28 months, and the median duration of nivolumab administration was 6 months. It is noteworthy that we encountered a patient with local recurrence after chemoradiotherapy for oropharyngeal cancer who showed complete response (CR) to nivolumab therapy and also showed no relapse after completion of treatment. The patient was a 78-year-old man, and his performance status at the start of nivolumab administration was 1, but his Tumor Proportion Score (TPS) was 80%, indicating strong expression of PD-L1.