Conclusion
pembrolizumab, CM, Cancer
CANCER
This study of a novel combination of QS RT and pembrolizumab is the first of its kind.Preliminary results will inform future clinical trials, and planned correlative analyses will improve understanding of the mechanisms of pembrolizumab combined with RT in advanced/recurrent head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma.Author contributionsConception, design, drafting, revision, approval, agreement: RT Hughes, TW Lycan, BA Frizzell, PM Bunch and M Porosnicu. Design, drafting, revision, approval, agreement: RR Gebeyehu and JM Kalada. Design, revision, approval, agreement: RD Kinney. Conception, design, revision, approval, agreement: RB D'Agostino, P Triozzi, W Zhang and CM Furdui.DisclosureThe content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute.Financial & competing interests disclosureThis clinical study is supported and funded by the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Center Support Grant (award No. P30CA012197). The authors wish to acknowledge the support of the Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center Bioinformatics Shared Resource and the Clinical Protocol and Data Management Shared Resource, supported by the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Center Support Grant (award No. P30CA012197). This work was also supported by an Association of University Radiologists GE Radiology Research Academic Fellowship awarded to PM Bunch. M Porosnicu received clinical research support from Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Astellas Pharma and Sanofi-Aventis. M Porosnicu is also a consultant for Boehringer Ingelheim. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.Ethical conduct of researchThe authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.Open accessThis work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit 