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ESMO 2025 | Unmet needs in recurrent and metastatic head and neck cancer treatment

Denis Soulieres, MD, Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada, highlights the challenges of treating recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer, particularly after immunotherapy, where most patients fail therapy within a few months. As there is no proven treatment superior to single-agent chemotherapy such as paclitaxel or methotrexate in this setting, a significant medical need exists for further research and evaluation of new agents. This interview took place at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2025 Congress in Berlin, Germany.

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Transcript

So we do know from first-line therapy with immunotherapy that 80% of those patients will fail therapy and the great majority of them only in a few months. So it still means that we are still at a loss in terms of what is the best option of treatment for patients with head and neck cancer when it’s recurrent or metastatic. And especially after immunotherapy, there is currently no trial that has proven that anything would be superior to single agent chemotherapy like Paclitaxel or even Methotrexate...

So we do know from first-line therapy with immunotherapy that 80% of those patients will fail therapy and the great majority of them only in a few months. So it still means that we are still at a loss in terms of what is the best option of treatment for patients with head and neck cancer when it’s recurrent or metastatic. And especially after immunotherapy, there is currently no trial that has proven that anything would be superior to single agent chemotherapy like Paclitaxel or even Methotrexate. So it still leaves a population for which there is a very high medical need for which there needs to be a lot of research and more agents being evaluated in that setting specifically.

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