Fitzgerald CWR, Valero C, Swartzwelder, et al. - As there are only a few biomarkers for prediction of response to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) drugs in patients with head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC), the correlation between SUVmax (Maximum standardized uptake value) on PET-CT and survival was investigated in these patients via analyzing clinical and genomic data from patients treated with ICI for HNSCC and had received PET-CT imaging within 180 days prior to ICI start date. SUVmax was categorized as above or below the median. Researchers herein assessed 143 patients with mucosal HNSCC treated with ICI, 98 of whom met inclusion criteria for analysis. Per outcomes, high SUVmax was linked with poorer prognosis in patients receiving treatment with ICI for recurrent or metastatic HNSCC. Researchers also identified a significant correlation of high SUVmax with NLR, a biomarker with both prognostic and predictive value in patients with HNSCC treated with ICI. No correlation was observed between SUVmax and tumor mutation burden, despite prior works indicating an association in other cancer types. Considering these data, it appears that useful prognostic information for HNSCC patients treated with ICI may be gained from windows into systemic and tumor inflammation with laboratory and tumor metabolic imaging tests.