Dermatologic adverse events with immune checkpoint blockade: Systematic review and meta-analysis

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Background: Immune checkpoint blockade is known to be associated with various dermatologic adverse events. However, these adverse effects have not been studied in a systematic manner. This is especially relevant considering the rapidly increasing number of immune checkpoint inhibitors that are now available. Methods: We searched for eligible studies in PubMed and Google scholar. We reviewed randomized controlled trials involving cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors - PD1 inhibitors, PDL1 inhibitors and CTLA4 inhibitors and for dermatologic adverse effects. A total of 47 randomized controlled trials involving 11875 patients met eligibility criteria for our study. Results: Incidence rate of all grade dermatologic adverse effects was 40.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 39.4-41.7%). Most common adverse effects included pruritus (17.3%) (95% confidence interval [CI] 16.6-18.1%), undifferentiated rash (15.1%) (95% confidence interval [CI] 14.4-15.9%), vitiligo (3.6%) (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.2-3.9%), maculopapular rash (2.3%) (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.1-2.6%), stomatitis (0.7%) (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.55-0.92%) and dry skin (0.7%) (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.5-0.8%). Less common adverse events include palmoplantar erythrodysesthesia, pemphigoid skin reactions, lichen planus and hyperhidrosis. Grade 3 and higher adverse effects were seen in 1.3% of patients (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1-1.6%). Conclusions: A wide range of dermatologic adverse effects can be seen with immune checkpoint blockade. While the majority of these events are of grade 1-2, they can occasionally be severe and even life threatening. Patients receiving immune checkpoint blockade should be closely monitored for dermatologic adverse effects.

Review of neurological side effects associated with checkpoint inhibitor therapy in cancer patients

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Background: Checkpoint inhibitors have demonstrated efficacy in many cancer types. Neurological side effects are not well studied with check point inhibitors therapy. We conducted systematic review and meta analysis to evaluate the incidence of neurological side effects among various check point inhibitors. Methods: Eligible studies were searched for in PubMed and Google scholar. We searched for randomized controlled trials with cancer patients treated with check point inhibitors with neurological adverse effects. A total of 26 randomized controlled trials involving 6110 patients met eligibility criteria for the study. Results: Incidence rate of all grade neurological side effects include 5.6%(95% confidence interval [CI], 5.4-6.7%). Most common side effects include Headache (4.6%) (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.7-4.7%) followed by peripheral neuropathy (0.3%) (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.1-0.5%). Ipilimumab plus Nivolumab is associated with higher risk of headache and serious neurological side effects including myasthenia gravis, encephalitis, toxic encephalopathy and seizures. Conclusions: The incidence of neurological side effects associated with immune checkpoint inhibitors is low but not negligable. Patients on combination immunotherapy need more close monitoring for serious neurological side effects.

Dual Anticoagulation in Recurrent Thromboembolic Events with Failure of Monotherapy: A Novel Approach

In the last few decades many new anticoagulants (i.e direct thrombin and factor ten inhibitors) have been introduced with efficacy that rivals older drugs in the treatment of venous thromboembolism (VTE). However, for all their success, management of patients with recurrent thromboembolic events is still a challenging clinical scenario and not well addressed in the literature. We report the case of a young female with recurrent thromboembolisms in spite of using both newer agents and more conventional therapies. Ultimately, she is started on dual anticoagulation with warfarin and rivaroxaban without recurrence. This case report demonstrates that dual anticoagulants can be utilized in patients with recurrent VTE who fail single agent therapy. It also underscores the need for studies further elaborating on the utility of dual anticoagulants as a treatment modality for patients failing monotherapy.

Major hereditary gastrointestinal cancer syndromes: a narrative review

Gastrointestinal cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide. Hereditary gastrointestinal cancer syndromes constitute about 5-10% of all cancers. About 20-25% of undiagnosed cases have a possible hereditary component, which is not yet established. In the last few decades, the advance in genomics has led to the discovery of multiple cancer predisposition genes in gastrointestinal cancer. Physicians should be aware of these syndromes to identify high-risk patients and offer genetic testing to prevent cancer death. In this review, we describe clinical manifestations, genetic testing and its challenges, diagnosis and management of the major hereditary gastrointestinal cancer syndromes.

Role of chemotherapy in improving survival in stage IV colon cancer patients without surgery: An NCDB analysis

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Background: Approximately 20% of patients with colorectal cancer have metastases at the time of presentation. Use of systemic chemotherapy for stage IV colon cancer has greatly increased over past several years with newer advancements. With advancements in chemotherapy annual rate of Primary tumor resection dropped from 74.5 percent in 1988 to 57.4 percent in 2010 with improved survival rates. Methods: A total of 39,428 patients with stage IV colon cancer were analyzed from the national cancer data base (NCDB). Differences in demographic and clinical co-variates were compared using Fisher’s exact test, where as survival differences were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and associated log-rank test; p < 0.05 indicated statistical significance. Results: The log-rank tests indicated statistically significant difference in survival (p < 0.001), such that patients receiving chemotherapy survived significantly longer (median survival = 12.0 months, 95% CI = 11.8 to 12.2 months) compared to patients not receiving chemotherapy (median survival = 1.5 months, 95% CI = 1.5 to 1.5 months). Patients receiving chemotherapy were younger (63.2 +/- 13.2 vs 73.8 +/- 13.0 ) with lesser co morbidity when compared to people who did not receive chemotherapy. Conclusions: Patients receiving chemotherapy are considerably younger, with less co-morbidity, and they survive significantly longer. This study signifies the survival advantage with chemotherapy in Stage IV colon cancer patients who did not get any type of surgery. Further studies need to be establish to define the role of chemotherapy comparing to surgery in stage 4 colon cancer patients.

Efficacy and safety of anti-VEGF therapy in metastatic unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma: A meta-analysis

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Background:Conventional chemotherapy has limited role in metastatic unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Sorafenib is currently approved for metastatic unresectable HCC. We wanted to assess the efficacy and safety of other tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) targeting vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptor such as brivanib, linifanib and regorafenib in metastatic HCC. Methods: We have searched electronic databases Pubmed, Google scholar to identify published trials using brivanib, linifanib and regorafenib in HCC. The outcomes evaluated were overall survival, time to disease progression (TTDP) and adverse effects. Hazard ratios (HR) with their respective 95% confidence intervals (CI) were then computed using the appropriate model for categorical variables. We used STATA 13.0 and Comprehensive Meta Analysis 2.0 software for all analyses. Results: We included seven randomized control studies. A combined analysis of these seven randomised control trials showed improved overall survival (OS) in VEGF-TKI group when compared to placebo HR - 0.79; (95% CI 0.62-1.00). However, there was no significant survival benefit of the newer VEGF receptor inhibitors when compared to sorafenib (HR - 1.05; 95% CI 0.95-1.17). The time to disease progression (TTDP) was significantly better in VEGF-TKI group as compared to placebo (HR - 0.61; 95% CI 0.39-0.97). However, there was no significant difference in TTDP between VEGF-TKI group and Sorafenib (HR - 0.88; 95% CI 0.66-1.16). Adverse effects were noted to be higher in VEGF-TKI group when compared to placebo (HR- 1.07; 95% CI 1.01-1.13). Conclusions: Treatment with TKI targeting VEGF receptor is associated with a significant improvement in OS and TTDP with tolerable side effect profile. Inhibiting the VEGF receptor pathway could lead to improved outcomes in HCC.

Multi-agent and single-agent chemotherapy in stage IV pancreatic cancer: An NCDB analysis

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Background: Cartright et al (2014) examined 2,422 patients in the iKnowMed database and found that patients with advanced pancreatic cancer lived longer with multi-agent chemotherapy compared to single-agent chemotherapy (11.2 months vs 7.2 months). Our goal was to compare survival of patients with stage IV pancreatic cancer receiving multi-agent, single-agent, or no chemotherapy using a significantly larger sample of patients identified in the National Cancer Database (NCDB). Methods: We identified 86,048 patients with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Between-chemotherapy survival differences were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and associated log-rank tests; Tukey-Kramer adjusted p < .05 indicated statistical significance. Results: Patients receivingmulti-agent chemotherapy were more likely to have private insurance than single-agent and no chemotherapy patients (49.9% vs. 33.0% vs. 22.9%, respectively), live in an area with a median income of $63,000+ (36.9% vs. 30.2% vs. 28.4%, respectively), receive treatment at an academic center (43.3% vs. 34.5% vs. 32.8%, respectively), and have no comorbidities (72.9% vs. 66.9% vs. 61.1%, respectively). Statistically significant survival differences were indicated between all chemotherapy groups (all adjusted p < 0.05), such that patients receiving multi-agent chemotherapy had the longest survival followed by patients receiving single-agent chemotherapy and patients receiving no chemotherapy (median survival = 7.4, 4.9, and 1.4 months, respectively). A larger proportion of patients receiving multi-agent chemotherapy were alive at 6, 12, and 24 months relative to patients receiving single-agent or no chemotherapy. Conclusions: Our study is the largest to show the benefit of multi-agent chemotherapy over single-agent chemotherapy for stage IV pancreatic cancer, as well as analyze the demographics of patients receiving differing chemotherapy treatments. [Table: see text]