Use of cetuximab as an adjuvant agent to radiotherapy and surgery in recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa with squamous cell carcinoma

In our RDEB-SCC cases, cetuximab was well tolerated and the initial metastases/recurrences responded, consistent with another case study on the use of cetuximab in patients with RDEB-SCC.3 Although the evidence supports concurrent use with radiotherapy in other cancers, one should carefully consider the severe acute cutaneous side-effects of radiotherapy before administering anti-EGFR treatments at the same time. The locally recurrent SCCs responded in these cases but the distant metastases relapsed, suggesting that cetuximab may be better used as a neoadjuvant in the early stages of SCC in RDEB.2 Chemotherapy in patients with RDEB should be used with caution as infection may rapidly intervene.