Liu M, Han S, Zheng B, et al. - Researchers performed a comparison of the acceptance and different influencing factors of pembrolizumab in the treatment of recurrent and/or metastatic head and neck squamous cell cancer (R/M HNSCC) in developed (ie, the United States) and developing (ie, China) countries via analyzing cost-effectiveness. Using TreeAge Pro 2015 software, they constructed a Markov model to estimate the economic value of four treatment strategies. In China and the US, pembrolizumab group vs PD-L1 CPS treatment had the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $7892/Quality-adjusted life years (QALY) and $11,900/QALY, respectively. Pembrolizumab is identified as cost-effective given all ICERs were less than the threshold of $29,306 in China and $50,000 in the US. As a second-line treatment for R/M HNSCC, pembrolizumab monotherapy confers more health benefits in comparison with the standard, PD-L1 TPS and PD-L1 CPS groups in China and the US.