A retrospective observational study on cutaneous adverse events induced by immune checkpoint inhibitors.

BACKGROUND

Cutaneous adverse events (CAEs) related to oncological therapies are a common scenario in daily clinical practice.

METHODS

This is a retrospective observational study collecting the data regarding CAEs of patients treated with immune checkpoints inhibitors (ICIs) in four different Italian centers.

RESULTS

Of 323 patients included, 305 were evaluable for this analysis; 182 patients (59.7%) had metastatic cutaneous melanoma (CM), 99 (32.5%) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 24 (7.8%) renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The most frequent CAEs that we found, considering all the 305 patients, were pruriginous maculopapular rash (10.2% of the patients), vitiligo-like areas (7.2% of the patients), psoriasiform rash (6.2% of the patients), asymptomatic maculopapular rash (4.6% of the patients), and lichenoid rash (4.3% of the patients). Vitiligo-like areas occurred more frequently in patients with CM, while a lichenoid rash was more frequently observed in patients with RCC. Treatment interruption was related to drug-induced CAEs in 15.4% of melanoma patients and 0.0% of lung and kidney patients. Patients developing a cutaneous adverse event had better overall response rate and higher progression free survival and overall survival than the patients without CAEs.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study brings new information on the characteristics of CAEs related to ICIs treatment in three different types of cancers, CM, NSCLC and RCC.