Efficacy, safety, and survival outcomes of radiotherapy combined with nimotuzumab following induction chemotherapy in locally advanced head and neck cancer

The addition of nimotuzumab to radiotherapy following induction chemotherapy significantly improves tumor response rates and long-term survival in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer, without increasing severe treatment-related toxicity. Given that nasopharyngeal carcinoma constituted the majority of the cohort, this combination regimen represents a particularly promising therapeutic strategy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. However, because only a small number of non-nasopharyngeal head and neck cancers were included, the observed overall survival benefit should not be generalized to non-nasopharyngeal head and neck cancers, and further prospective studies in more homogeneous populations are warranted to validate these findings.