Andrea Boutros, Medical Doctor and Oncology Resident at San Martino Polyclinic Hospital, shared a post on X about a paper by Rahul Ladwa et al. on ASCO Journal of Clinical Oncology:
“Can we spare surgery and radiation for some CSCC patients?
The De‑Squamate phase II trial treated 27 patients with resectable stage III–IV cSCC with neoadjuvant pembro x4.
48% achieved a clinical CR and avoided surgery/RT; 15% achieved pathologic CR.
Paients underwent PET + biopsies to confirm cCR before omitting surgery/radiation. After a median 18‑month, no recurrences were seen among cCR/pCR patients.
EFS at 12 months was 94% for responders vs 40% for non‑responders.
This study shows that response‑adapted de‑escalation is feasible in CSCC and may reduce morbidity without compromising outcomes.”
Title: Response-Adapted Surgical and Radiotherapy De-Escalation in Resectable Cutaneous Squamous Cell Cancer Using Pembrolizumab: The De-Squamate Study
Authors: Rahul Ladwa, Jenny H. Lee, Margaret McGrath, Caroline Cooper, Howard Liu, James Bowman, Ruta Gupta, Claire Cuscaden, Michelle Nottage, Jonathan R. Clark, Dieu Le, Marketa Pauley, Arutha Kulasinghe, Jazmina Gonzalez-Cruz, Sandro V. Porceddu, Brett G.M. Hughes, Benedict Panizza
Read the full article.
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