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Immunotherapy for Salivary Gland Cancer
Immunotherapies are medicines that help a person’s own immune system recognize and destroy cancer cells. They are rarely used to help treat salivary gland cancer.
Treatment for salivary gland cancer is often complex. People tend to have better outcomes if they’re treated at centers with a lot of experience in caring for people with head and neck cancers.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors for salivary gland cancer
Just as it’s important that immune cells get activated to fight infections and cancer, it’s also important that they turn off when they are no longer needed. Checkpoint proteins on immune cells act as brakes to slow down immune attacks.
Cancer cells sometimes use these checkpoints to keep from being attacked by the immune system.
Drugs that target these checkpoint proteins, called immune checkpoint inhibitors, can help restore the immune response against the cancer cells.
PD-1 inhibitors
PD-1 is a checkpoint protein on immune cells called T cells.
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), a drug that targets PD-1, might be an option to treat some advanced salivary gland cancers that have a high tumor mutational burden (TMB-H), meaning the cancer cells have many gene changes. The tumor cells can be tested for these gene changes.
Typically, it is used after other treatments have been tried or when no other good treatment options are available.
Nivolumab (Opdivo, Opdivo Qvantig), another PD-1 inhibitor, has also been tested in combination with ipilimumab, another type of immune checkpoint inhibitor. It might work better for metastatic salivary gland tumors besides adenoid cystic carcinomas.
These drugs can be given into a vein (IV) or by injection.
More information about immunotherapy
To learn more about how drugs that work on the immune system are used to treat cancer, see Cancer Immunotherapy.
To learn about some of the side effects listed here and how to manage them, see Managing Cancer-related Side Effects.
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- References
Developed by the American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team with medical review and contribution by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
Cohen RB, Delord JP, Doi T, et al. Pembrolizumab for the Treatment of Advanced Salivary Gland Carcinoma: Findings of the Phase 1b KEYNOTE-028 Study. Am J Clin Oncol. 2018;41(11):1083-1088.
Laurie SA, Schiff B. Malignant salivary gland tumors: Treatment of recurrent and metastatic disease. UpToDate. 2025. Accessed at https://www.uptodate.com/contents/malignant-salivary-gland-tumors-treatment-of-recurrent-and-metastatic-disease on January 8, 2026.
National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology: Head and Neck Cancers. v.1.2026-December 8, 2025. Accessed at https://www.nccn.org/professionals/physician_gls/pdf/head-and-neck.pdf on January 8, 2026.
Sirjani DB, Lewis JS, Beadle BM, Sunwoo JB, Finegersh A. Chapter 86: Malignant Neoplasms of the Salivary Glands. In: Francis HW, Haughey BH, Hillel AT, eds. Cummings Otolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery. 8th ed. Philadelphia, PA. Elsevier; 2026.
Vos JL, Burman B, Jain S, et al. Nivolumab plus ipilimumab in advanced salivary gland cancer: a phase 2 trial. Nat Med. 2023;29(12):3077-3089.
Last Revised: March 11, 2026
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