94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1571285
This article is part of the Research TopicOpportunities and Challenges of Head and Neck Cancer Treatment in the Era of Immune Checkpoint InhibitorsView all 12 articles
Oncologic outcomes following neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy in locally advanced oral squamous cell carcinoma
Provisionally accepted- Henan Provincial Cancer Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: To assess the oncologic outcomes in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) who underwent treatment with radiotherapy (RT) or chemoradiation therapy (CRT) following neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy and surgery. Methods: Data from patients who underwent neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy, surgery, and adjuvant therapy were collected prospectively and analyzed retrospectively. The primary outcomes assessed were 3-year overall survival and locoregional control. Secondary endpoints included the objective response rate (ORR), rates of pathologic complete response (pCR) and major pathologic response (MPR), as well as safety.Results: A total of 137 patients were included in the analysis. Neoadjuvant therapy yielded an ORR of 81.7%, with pCR and MPR achieved in 47 and 73 patients, respectively. Grade III and IV adverse events were rare, comprising only 1.6% of all events. The addition of adjuvant chemotherapy to RT did not show a significant reduction in the risk of locoregional recurrence.However, with regards to overall survival, the hazard ratios were 0.85 (95% CI: 0.73-0.96) for the MPR group and 0.66 (95% CI: 0.37-0.89) for the pCR group, both significantly higher than that in patients with incomplete pathologic response. The addition of adjuvant chemotherapy to RT was associated with a 5% reduction in the risk of mortality (95% CI: 1%-14%), the protective effect of CRT was the most obvious in patients with MPR.Neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy demonstrated high safety and efficacy in oral SCC.CRT was superior to RT in terms of overall survival especially in patients with MPR when administered following neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy and surgery.
Keywords: Neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy, oral squamous cell carcinoma, chemoradiation, Radiotherapy, Safety
Received: 05 Feb 2025; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Du, Li, Wang, Fang and Dai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wei Du, Henan Provincial Cancer Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.