Real world evidence of nivolumab in Japanese patients with head and neck cancer

Abstract

Co. Nivolumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor, was approved for the treatment of “recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer” in March 2017 in Japan. This approval was based on the results of a global phase 3 clinical trial, the CheckMate 141 trial, in patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. In the 4 years after its approval, multiple Japanese research institutions have reported real-world data of nivolumab, elucidating the further treatment outcomes of nivolumab. In this article, we review published litera-ture reporting real-world outcomes of nivolumab, focusing on: （1） long-term follow-up, （2） patients with primary sites who were excluded from the CheckMate 141 trial, and （3） salvage chemotherapy following nivolumab treatment.