234
Views
5
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Review

Emerging drugs for the treatment of basal cell carcinoma

&
Pages 17-26 | Received 11 Nov 2020, Accepted 06 Jan 2021, Published online: 24 Jan 2021
 

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most frequent skin malignancy, with incidence increasing worldwide. Most BCC can be cured with local treatments (surgery or topical therapies), but advanced or recurrent forms require specific therapies. Significant developments targeting the sonic hedgehog signalization pathway have been made in the past years, paving the way for new therapies.

Areas covered: This review details emerging drugs for BCC treatment, focusing on topical, intra-tumoral, and systemic therapies, such as new targeted therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors. A literature search was conducted to identify ongoing studies using PudMed database and clinicaltrials.gov website.

Expert opinion: Although surgery is and will probably remain the gold-standard therapy for BCC, treatment of recurrent, advanced, and metastatic tumors is evolving. Emergence of tumors resistant to targeted therapies lead the way to new approaches. Topical and intra-tumoral treatments represent alternatives to surgical morbidity, and many studies are ongoing. The first results of immune checkpoint inhibitors are encouraging in advanced and metastatic forms of the disease. New targeted therapies are needed to overcome or prevent the resistance to standard hedgehog pathway inhibitors.

Declaration of interest

F Herms is a consultant for Sun Pharma and Sanofi. N Basset-Seguin is a consultant for Novartis, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Sun Pharma, and PellePharm. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.