A Podcast Discussion on Medical Treatment in R/M-SCCHN in the Year 2025—Standard and Considerations for an Individualized Treatment

In this podcast, speakers Dr Konrad Klinghammer and Dr Philipp Ivanyi discuss the general principles of systemic therapy for recurrent and/or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (R/M SCCHN), with a focus on key phase 3 clinical trials such as KEYNOTE-048 and EXTREME. The strengths and limitations of these studies are evaluated, and in the context of additional phase 2 trials, considerations are made regarding individualised treatment strategies based on patient-specific characteristics when selecting first-line therapy. Second-line treatment decisions should be based on the mode of action used in the first-line setting —pending further clinical trials to establish optimal treatment sequencing.

This podcast is published open access in Oncology and Therapy and is fully citeable. You can access the original published podcast article through the Oncology and Therapy website and by using this link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40487-025-00396-6.

This podcast has been developed through educational funding from Merck Healthcare Germany GmbH, and Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. The authors were selected by the journal, and the content of the podcast was developed independently by the authors and the journal Editors. The Rapid Service was funded by this educational funding also. All conflicts of interest can be found online.

This podcast is intended for medical professionals.

Open Access This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The material in this podcast is included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.