BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1649486
This article is part of the Research TopicCommunity Series in Reducing Adverse Effects of Cancer Immunotherapy: Volume IIIView all 8 articles
Associations between chemoradiotherapy (CRT)- based immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) and posttreatment depression and anxiety in head and neck cancer patients: A cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Soochow University, Suzhou, China
- 2Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
- 3Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated Hospital, Jinan, China
- 4Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou, China
- 5Department of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital, Jinan, China
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Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) and combination treatment paradigms have gradually improved the prognosis of head and neck cancer (HNC) patients. However, HNC survivors need struggle with anxiety and depression because of the, due to a large variety of persistent cancer-related or treatment-related symptoms. Recent studies have suggested that emotional distress was is closely related to the ICB therapeutic efficacy of ICB. In this study, 232 advanced HNC patients were recruited and their anxiety and depression status were assessed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to balance confounders. The nearest-neighbor matching method was used for PSM matching to perform 1:1 matching. By comparing the anxiety and depression status of HNC patients after propensity score matching (PSM)PSM, we showed that HNC patients receiving chemoradiotherapy (CRT) combined with ICB, both concurrent radiotherapy (RT) and sequential RT, had lower depression levels than did those receiving CRT aloneCRT. These findings suggest that ICB treatment may be associated withhas an influence on emotional statuscondition, which may could offer insights into provide a new light to ameliorate quality of life, both physically and psychologically, ofhysical and psychological component, for HNC patients.
Keywords: Immune checkpoint blockade, head and neck cancer, Chemoradiotherapy, Depression, Anxiety
Received: 18 Jun 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Chen, Zhang, Hong, Zhou and Ding. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xingchen Ding, Department of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital, Jinan, China
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