Dr. Daniels on Immunotherapy in Head and Neck Cancer

Gregory A. Daniels, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, associate professor of medicine, UC San Diego Health, discusses the role of immunotherapy for patients with head and neck cancer.

According to Daniels, it is important to use genetics to discover what is driving the mutation. The next thing that happens with these targeted therapies is resistance. HER3 is activated at MAP-kinase resistance when you start turning off BRAF. There are ongoing studies looking at those combinations.

As far as immunotherapy is concerned, there is pembrolizumab (Keytruda), nivolumab (Opdivo), and others in the field. These have good activity, but often cause stable disease for a period of time, explains Daniels.