Immune biomarkers for head and neck cancer.
Sobhani N., D'Angelo A., Kugeratski FG., Nguyen T., Morris RM., Roudi R., Kia N., Pianta L., Morello R., Winter S., Generali D., Membrino A.
In recent years, head and neck cancer therapy has been revolutionized by immunotherapy, which aims to restore the immune system's anticancer activity suppressed by cancer cells. The major concern is that only a subset of patients responds to this therapy. Having specific biomarkers that could help identify the patients who are most likely to benefit from immunotherapies would be extremely useful. This review first explains the current immunotherapies tested in head and neck cancer, to then delve into the current prognostic and predictive biomarkers that have been investigated in this field to predict their responses. In our opinion, a broader selection of biomarkers could further improve who will respond best to immunotherapy.