Immunotherapy is becoming an accepted treatment modality for many patients with cancer and is now approved for use in platinum-refractory recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Despite these successes, a minority of patients with HNSCC receiving immunotherapy respond to treatment, and few undergo a complete response. Thus, there is a critical need to identify mechanisms regulating immune checkpoints in HNSCC such that one can predict who will benefit, and so novel combination strategies can be developed for non-responders. Here, we review the immunotherapy and molecular genetics literature to describe what is known about immune checkpoints in common genetic subsets of HNSCC. We highlight several highly recurrent genetic lesions that may serve as biomarkers or targets for combination immunotherapy in HNSCC.
Keywords: EGFR; Genetics; HNSCC.; Immunotherapy; personalized medicine.