Biomarkers for Immunotherapy of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Current Status and Challenges

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) forms a major health problem in many countries. For several decades the management of OSCC consisted of surgery with or without radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy. Aiming to increase survival rate, recent research has underlined the significance of harnessing the immune response in treatment of many cancers. The promising finding of checkpoint inhibitors as a weapon for targeting metastatic melanoma was a key event in the development of immunotherapy. Furthermore, clinical trials have recently proven inhibitor of PD-1 for treatment of recurrent/metastatic head and neck cancer. However, some challenges (including patient selection) are presented in the era of immunotherapy. In this mini-review we discuss the emergence of immunotherapy for OSCC and the recently introduced biomarkers of this therapeutic strategy. Immune biomarkers and their prognostic perspectives for selecting patients who may benefit from immunotherapy are addressed. In addition, possible use of such biomarkers to assess the response to this new treatment modality of OSCC will also be discussed.