Hisham Mehanna, PhD, BMedSc, MBChB, FRCS, FRCS(ORL-HNS), of the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, presents results from the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress, in Munich, Germany, on the De-ESCALaTE trial comparing cetuximab vs. cisplatin in patients with HPV-positive, low-risk oropharyngeal cancer who are receiving radical radiotherapy (ISRCTN33522080; NCT01874171). Although HPV-positive patients currently do well on existing treatments of chemo-radiotherapy or cisplatin-radiotherapy, Prof. Mehanna expresses the need to find new treatments with reduced toxicity profiles.
