Integr(at)in(g) EGFR therapy in HNSCC

Patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are usually addressed to surgery and/or radiotherapy. The addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy has also been extensively investigated, but treatment outcome often remained disappointing (1). Based on high levels of epidermal growth factor (EGFR) expression detected in approximately 90% of HNSCC, and associated to worse clinical outcome and decreased response to radiotherapy (2), the anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody cetuximab has been approved for treatment of patients with HNSCC (1). A paper recently published in Journal of National Cancer Institute by Eke and colleagues (3) demonstrated that simultaneous targeting of β1 integrin and EGFR is a promising approach to overcome radioresistance in preclinical HNSCC models. Mechanistically, radioresistance depends on pro-survival signalling transduced by a protein complex of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1): combined β1 integrin/EGFR blocking is able to interfere with these signals.