A triple combination shrank tumours in 77% of patients with a hard-to-treat head and neck cancer

For people whose head and neck cancer has come back or spread, and whose tumours are unrelated to HPV, options have been thin. Early results from the OrigAMI-4 trial, reported by The Institute of Cancer Research, London, show a triple combination — amivantamab plus pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy — produced tumour responses in 77% of such patients, against 36% for the current standard first-line treatment; among the 22 patients analysed in this group, 17 responded, three of them completely. The trial ran across 56 sites in 11 countries under Professor Kevin Harrington of the ICR and Royal Marsden. The numbers come from a small early cohort, so the team is taking the regimen into a global Phase III trial — but a doubling of response rates is exactly what earns that step.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation