Session

Overview: The session ‘From bench to bedside and beyond’ will spotlight challenges in the prevention and treatment of head and neck cancer, particularly focusing on early diagnosis, biomarkers for disease progression and immunotherapy. We will commence with a presentation and discussion on limitations and challenges of gold standard (histopathology) diagnosis and on biomarkers related to potentially malignant oral disorders, their clinical and molecular classification, and innovative prevention strategies. We will discuss added value of immunohistochemical markers for early diagnosis of histologically subtitle lesions. Further we will go to exploration of the role of myeloid cells' immunosuppressive role in head and neck cancer progression, and the identification of myeloid cell-associated biomarkers, covering ongoing trials and pre-clinical studies. The session will then continue with biomarkers of immune response to immunotherapy in head and neck cancer, and address patient selection insights from extensive phase 2/3 studies (CPS PD-L1, HPV status), as well as new potential blood-based biomarkers.