Immunotherapy for pharyngeal cancer
Immunotherapy helps to strengthen or restore the immune systemʼs ability to fight cancer. This works to kill cancer cells and stop cancer cells from growing and spreading.
Immunotherapy is sometimes used to treat pharyngeal cancer. If you have immunotherapy, your healthcare team will use what they know about the cancer and about your health to plan the drugs, doses and schedules.
Immunotherapy may be the only treatment you have or it may be used along with other treatments. You may have immunotherapy to treat:
- locally advanced pharyngeal cancer
- pharyngeal cancer that has stopped responding to platinum drugs such as cisplatin
- cancer that has come back (recurred)
- some types of metastatic pharyngeal cancer
Immune checkpoint inhibitors
The immune system normally stops itself from attacking normal cells in the body by
using specific proteins called checkpoints. Checkpoints slow down or stop an immune
system response. Some pharyngeal cancer cells sometimes use these checkpoints to
hide and avoid being attacked by the immune system. Immune checkpoint inhibitors
work by blocking the checkpoint proteins so immune system cells (called
PD-1 is an immune checkpoint protein that stops T cells from attacking other cells in the body. It does this by attaching to PD-L1, a protein found on some normal cells and some cancer cells.
The following PD-1 and PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors may be used to treat pharyngeal cancer:
- pembrolizumab (Keytruda)
- nivolumab (Opdivo)
The following PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors are used for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal cancer only, in combination with cisplatin and gemcitabine, or used alone.
- toripalimab (Loqtorzi)
- tislelizumab (Tevimbra)
Side effects
Side effects of immunotherapy will depend mainly on the type of drug or drug combinations, the dose, how itʼs given and your overall health. Tell your healthcare team if you have side effects that you think might be from immunotherapy. The sooner you tell them of any problems, the sooner they can suggest ways to help you deal with them.
These are possible side effects of immunotherapy for pharyngeal cancer:
- fatigue
- loss of appetite
- nausea
- diarrhea
- skin problems, including a rash and itching
- constipation
- dizziness
- sleeping problems
- peripheral nerve damage
Government drug coverage in Canada
All drugs, including those used to treat cancer, are approved for use in Canada by Health Canada. If a drug is mentioned on cancer.ca, it means that Health Canada has approved the drug and pharmaceutical companies sell it in Canada. It does not mean that the drug is offered everywhere in Canada.
Paying for drugs is the responsibility of provincial and territorial health departments. Each health department makes its own decisions about which drugs to cover (pay for) in that province or territory. This means that a drug may be covered in one province, but not in others.
Your oncologist will talk to you about different drug treatments and what is available through your provincial or territorial drug program.
Find out more about immunotherapy
Find out more about immunotherapy. To make the decisions that are right for you, ask your healthcare team questions about immunotherapy.
Details on specific drugs change regularly. Find out more about sources of drug information and where to get details on specific drugs.
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