Preoperative Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy for Patients With Primary Untreated or Recurrent/Metastatic Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck (RM-SCCHN)

This research is being done to see if it is safe and feasible to give the investigational drugs, nivolumab (also known as BMS-936558) before surgery to people with newly diagnosed or recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck (SCCHN). Patients with recurrent disease may have a limited number of sites of metastatic (spread) squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck. Another goal of this study is to learn how nivolumab impacts the immune system's ability to treat the cancer. While nivolumab is approved by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with metastatic SCCHN with progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy, the word "investigational" in this context means that the study drugs are not approved by the FDA for the treatment of head and neck cancers prior to surgery and thus is still being tested in research studies. However, the FDA is allowing the use of nivolumab in this study.

This study will have two arms. Cohort (arm) 1 will examine one dose of nivolumab given about 4 weeks before surgical resection (removal) of a newly diagnosed SCCHN. Twelve patients will be enrolled to this arm. Cohort 2 will examine one dose of nivolumab given about 4 weeks before surgical resection (removal) of SCCHN which has recurred and possibly spread to distant sites, but still can be resected with one surgery. Twelve patients will be enrolled to this arm.