Cemiplimab for the treatment of advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is the second most frequent type of malignancy in Caucasians worldwide. Several factors have been correlated with aggressiveness and likelihood of recurrence and distant metastases, which are challenging to control. Metastatic disease has a dismal prognosis, and standard chemotherapy has failed to significantly improve outcomes. Recently, it has been recognized that cSCCs are highly mutated tumors with a denoting potential likelihood of response to immune checkpoint blockade. Cemiplimab is an anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) antibody recently approved for the treatment of unresectable locally advanced or metastatic cSCC by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Commission with a compelling response rate and an acceptable safety profile.

Keywords: Anti-PD-1 therapy; Cancer immunotherapy; Cemiplimab; Immune checkpoint inhibitors; Monoclonal antibodies; Mutational burden; Nonmelanoma skin cancer; Skin cancer; Squamous cell carcinoma.