Rheumatic manifestations among cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors

Publication date: Available online 16 January 2018
Source:Autoimmunity Reviews
Author(s): Merav Lidar, Eitan Giat, Daniela Garelick, Yuval Horowitz, Howard Amital, Yael Steinberg-Silman, Jacob Shachter, Ronnie Shapira-Frommer, Gal Markel
BackgroundThe use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) has grown incessantly since they were first approved in 2014. These monoclonal antibodies inhibit T cell activation, yielding a dramatic tumor response with improved survival. However, immunotherapy is frequently hampered by immune adverse events (iAE) such as hypophysitis, colitis, hepatitis, pneumonitis and rash. Until recently, rheumatic side effects were only infrequently reported.AimTo describe the rheumatic manifestations encountered among patients treated with ICIs in a large tertiary cancer center in IsraelMethodsThe cancer center's patient registry was screened for patients who had ever been treated with ipilimumab, pembrolizumab and/or nivolumab with relevant data gathered from clinical charts.ResultsRheumatic manifestations were encountered in 14 of 400 patients (3.5%) who had received immunotherapy between January 1st 2013 and April 30th, 2017. The most common rheumatic manifestation was inflammatory arthritis (85%) for which a third (4/11) had a clear cut predisposing factor such as a personal or family history of psoriasis, a prior episode of uveitis or ACPA positivity. Pulmonary sarcoidosis and biopsy-proven eosinophilc fasciitis were diagnosed in two additional patients. Treatment with NSAIDS was mostly unsuccessful while steroid therapy was beneficial in doses ≥20 mg/d. Methotrexate enabled steroid tapering without an excess of side effects or tumor progression in the short follow-up available. Overall, rheumatic manifestations tended to occur later in the course of immunotherapy as compared to other iAE.ConclusionsOur findings underscore that rheumatic iAE are part of the side effect profile of ICIs and require heightened awareness as these therapies are becoming the standard of care for various malignancies. We show that these appear later in the course of iAEs and respond preferentially to high dose steroids. MTX appears effective as a steroid sparing agent.



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