Effective treatment of a platinum-resistant cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma case by EGFR pathway inhibition

Abstract

Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is the second most common type of non-melanoma skin cancer. Platinum-based regimens have been an integral part of palliative care for patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease. There is no evidence of efficacy for later lines of chemotherapy and no targeted therapy has been introduced as 'standard of care'. Here we report on the case of an elderly cSCC patient, resistant to conventional therapy, however successfully treated with anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) agent (Cetuximab) in addition to a daily dose of Curcumin phospholipid. The patient responded to treatment and experienced no recurrence for 11 months with only minor skin-related toxicity. To our knowledge, this is the first report of clinical evidence that an anti EGFR targeted therapy with a daily oral dose of Curcumin phospholipid is well tolerated and results in a highly effective disease control in a heavily pretreated cSCC patient.

Keywords: EGFR pathway; FGFR3; Ion Torrent PGM; cSCC; cetuximab; curcumin; mutations; next-generation sequencing; targeted therapy.

Figure 1.

Lesion and MRI of the patient before and after cetuximab-curcumin treatment for recurrent cSCC of the supraclavicular region. Tumor masse (arrow) can be seen in the nuchal and supraclavicular regions of the patient before initiation of cetuximab-curcumin treatment. Moreover, the supraclavicular 10 cm lesion appeared ulcerated at the medical examination (A). The masse (arrow) became significantly reduced in size on MRI obtained 12 weeks after treatment (B), indicating good response to combination treatment.