Chemotherapy and Targeted Therapy

Abstract

Salivary gland cancers are uncommon neoplasms of the head and neck that exhibit considerable pathological, biological, and clinical diversity, resulting in a paucity of prospective data regarding the use of non-surgical treatments. Chemotherapy has shown limited activity in patients with metastatic disease, and there has been little exploration of its use in definitive management. There is no standard recommendation for the use of systemic therapy, with palliative chemotherapy being considered on an individual basis for rapidly progressive or symptomatic disease. Recent research has focused on the identification of characteristic molecular signatures and genomic alterations in specific histologic subtypes. Using a molecular biological approach, several signalling pathways have been identified in many cancers of salivary gland origin; thus, a number of targeted therapies have been investigated.