JCO Corrects Missing Protocol Summary in HER2-Directed Salivary Gland Cancer Trial
A Journal of Clinical Oncology erratum has corrected an omission in the appendix protocol for the phase II study of trastuzumab rezetecan in advanced salivary gland carcinoma. The original report, published online August 11, 2026, was accompanied by an appendix protocol that was missing the Protocol Summary. That material has now been restored, with the correction published September 16, 2026.
The fix is narrow, but it matters in the way oncology methodology often does: the precision of the protocol shapes how clinicians, reviewers, and future investigators interpret every efficacy and safety claim that follows. In biomarker-stratified studies, where patient selection is built around human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 expression, the protocol summary is not decorative text. It frames the intent of the trial, the stratification logic, and the operational details that determine whether the study can be read as a clean test of a biologic hypothesis or only as a descriptive clinical exercise.
The correction does not alter the scientific premise of the accompanying article. It addresses a documentation gap in the appendix, not a new efficacy signal, a revised endpoint, or a changed interpretation of the drug’s activity. For readers trying to assess a complex oncology trial, however, the absence of a protocol summary can create avoidable friction. Trial transparency depends on the full chain of methods being available, especially when the therapeutic agent is being examined across cohorts defined by biomarker expression rather than a single unselected population.
Why Appendix Completeness Matters in Biomarker-Stratified Oncology
Advanced salivary gland carcinoma remains a clinically difficult disease, and drug development in this area often leans on biomarker-driven enrollment because the tumor population is relatively uncommon and biologically heterogeneous. In that setting, a protocol summary serves as a compact map of the study’s architecture. It helps readers understand how patients were assigned, what the trial was designed to answer, and where the boundaries of inference lie.
When a protocol appendix is incomplete, the gap can affect more than archival neatness. It can slow secondary review, complicate comparison with related studies, and leave journal readers without the clearest available account of the study design. For a phase II oncology trial, where the signal-to-noise ratio is already constrained by modest cohort sizes and disease rarity, even a missing appendix element can complicate methodological confidence.
This erratum restores the record rather than revising the biology. The correction confirms that the study materials are now complete as intended, and the journal has apologized for the error.
Trastuzumab Rezetecan and the Need for Precise Trial Documentation
The accompanying article examined trastuzumab rezetecan in advanced salivary gland carcinoma across cohorts with high and low HER2 expression. Any trial built around a biomarker split depends on documentation that lets readers trace how the biomarker was used to organize the study question. Without that framework, even a well-conducted trial can become harder to interpret at the bedside, where oncologists need to know whether a treatment’s observed activity is likely to track with a molecular subgroup or extend beyond it.
That is the practical role of protocol transparency. It helps distinguish a treatment effect that is biologically coherent from one that may reflect cohort composition, eligibility rules, or reporting structure. In cancers where actionable targets are still relatively sparse, the methods section and its appendices often carry as much interpretive weight as the outcome tables themselves.
The erratum, therefore, is less about correcting a substantive scientific claim than about preserving the completeness of the evidence package. Readers who return to the original study now have access to the intended protocol summary, which supports a more accurate appraisal of the trial’s design.
Publication Record Restored Without Changing the Clinical Message
The correction was published in Volume 44, Number 30 of the journal and is indexed to page 2979. The article remains identified as an erratum linked to the original phase II report, and the correction applies specifically to the appendix protocol’s missing Protocol Summary. No new patient data were introduced, no dosing changes were announced, and no endpoint results were revised in the erratum itself.
That separation is important. Oncology journals routinely issue corrections to preserve the integrity of the literature, and many of those corrections concern exactly this kind of production or appendix omission. The clinical message remains anchored in the original trial publication; the erratum ensures that the documentary record matches the study as submitted and accepted.
For clinicians following salivary gland carcinoma research, the main takeaway is procedural rather than therapeutic. The article now carries the complete supporting protocol material, which strengthens the transparency of a phase II study in a rare cancer population. For investigators, the correction reinforces how much weight a seemingly small appendix item can carry in biomarker-stratified oncology, where protocol language often determines how faithfully a future reader can reconstruct the trial’s logic.
The remaining question for practice is not whether the correction changes the trial’s results—it does not—but how consistently complete protocol documentation will be maintained in future studies of targeted therapy for rare salivary gland tumors.