Novel therapeutic options for recurrent metastatic salivary gland tumors: Review of ongoing clinical trials

Abstract

The clinical behavior and biology of recurrent malignant salivary gland tumors are myriad with slow-growing indolent disease at the one end of spectrum and aggressive symptomatic illness with metastases to bone, lung, and liver at the other end. Several different agents and combination chemotherapy regimens have been explored in patients whose disease is symptomatic with response rates between 15% and 40%. Recently, molecular studies have evolved to reveal targetable biomarkers which can be further explored in the therapeutic landscape with specific targeted therapies. A subset of tumors also expresses hormone receptors and hence is amenable to conventional antihormonal agents to obtain a possibly meaningful benefit. We searched for all ongoing and completed clinical trials involving chemotherapy, targeted therapy, hormonal therapy, and immunotherapy valid for patients with recurrent metastatic salivary gland tumors. We present the current viable therapeutic options for such a cohort of patients in routine clinical practice.

Keywords

• chemotherapy; clinical trials; malignant salivary gland tumors