Emerging Trends in Head and Neck Cancer Treatment: Advanced Imaging Modalities and Personalized Therapy

Christina Henson, MD, radiation oncologist at The University of Oklahoma, discusses unmet needs among patients with head and neck cancer. Here, she discusses studies investigating how to best customize treatment for these patients, especially regarding deescalating treatment to avoid unnecessary toxicities.

Transcription:

0:05 | So far, we haven't found the kind of magic solution or the best way to deescalate on a large scale, but there have been a lot of really promising smaller studies selecting more niche groups of patients either with advanced imaging modalities that aren't necessarily available everywhere but that are able to kind of measure the tumor biology during the course of treatment and use that to determine who's having a good response and who's not having a good response and have the option to stop treatment earlier at lower doses for patients who are responding well.

0:45 | So everyone's hopeful that some time in the near future one of or more than one of is these studies will pan out in a widely applicable way that will be very beneficial for our patients.