Project description:Among all malignant tumors that threaten human health, virus-related tumors account for a large proportion. The treatment of these tumors is still an urgent problem to be resolved. The immune system is the "guard" of the human body, resisting the invasion of foreign substances such as viruses. Studies have shown that immunotherapy has clinical significance in the treatment of a variety of tumors. In particular, the emergence of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in recent years has opened a new door to cancer therapy. Considering the potential role of ICIs in the treatment of virus-related cancers, we focused on their therapeutic effect in virus-associated cancers and explored whether the therapeutic effect in virus-associated cancers was related to virus infection status. Although there is no clear statistical significance indicates that ICIs are more effective in virus-associated cancers than non-virus infections, the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors in the treatment of virus-related cancers is promising. We believe that this research provides a good direction for the implementation of individualized precision medicine.
Project description:Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have widely reshaped the treatment paradigm of advanced cancer patients. Although multiple studies are currently evaluating these drugs as monotherapies or in combination, the choice of the most accurate statistical methods, endpoints and clinical trial designs to estimate the benefit of ICI remains an unsolved methodological issue. Considering the unconventional patterns of response or progression [i.e., pseudoprogression, hyperprogression (HPD)] observed with ICI, the application in clinical trials of novel response assessment tools (i.e., iRECIST) able to capture delayed benefit of immunotherapies and/or to quantify tumor dynamics and kinetics over time is an unmet clinical need. In addition, the proportional hazard model and the conventional measures of survival [i.e., median overall or progression free survival (PFS) and hazard ratios (HR)] might usually result inadequate in the estimation of the long-term benefit observed with ICI. For this reason, innovative methodologies such as milestone analysis, restricted mean survival time (RMST), parametric models (i.e., Weibull distribution, weighted log rank test), should be systematically investigated in clinical trials in order to adequately quantify the fraction of patients who are "cured", represented by the tails of the survival curves. Regarding predictive biomarkers, in particular PD-L1 expression, the integration and harmonization of the existing assays are urgently needed to provide clinicians with reliable diagnostic tests and to improve patient selection for immunotherapy. Finally, developing original and high-quality study designs, such as adaptive or basket biomarker enriched clinical trials, included in large collaborative platforms with multiple active sites and cross-sector collaboration, represents the successful strategy to optimally assess the benefit of ICI in the next future.
Project description:There have been unique adverse events reported with targeted blockade of programmed death-1 (PD-1), programmed death-ligand-1 (PD-L1), and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein-4 (CTLA4), including immune mediated toxicities. Recently, there have been reports of hepatitis B reactivation (HBVr) occurring with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors, which may result in treatment delays, interruptions, or discontinuation. This retrospective literature review and analysis of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS) queried reported cases of "Hepatitis B reactivation" reported with the PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors "Pembrolizumab," "Atezolizumab," "Nivolumab," "Durvalumab," "Avelumab," and "Ipilimumab" from initial FDA approval to June 30, 2020. Disproportionality signal analysis was determined by calculating a reporting odds ratio (ROR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). The ROR was considered significant when the lower and upper limits of the 95% CI were >1 and confirmed by the Fisher exact test (P<0.05). Pembrolizumab had a strong signal associated with HBVr, with a ROR of 2.32 (95% CI: 1.11-4.28) (P=0.013) and was the only statistically significant finding. There were no reports of HBVr with Ipilimumab or Avelumab. Additional prospective studies should be conducted to validate the findings of this retrospective pharmacovigilance analysis to determine the risk of HBVr in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Project description:The potential to harness the power of the immune system and effectively treat patients with metastatic melanoma is finally being realized with the advent of immune checkpoint inhibitors. These new therapies herald a new era in the treatment of melanoma with the potential to produce very durable responses and possible cure for a subset of patients, though bring with them challenges including novel toxicities and nonconventional response patterns. This article reviews the currently available immune checkpoint inhibitors, potential biomarkers to predict response and promising investigational approaches including combination therapies.
Project description:Large population-based studies examining differences in ICI-associated cardiotoxicity across cancer types and agents are limited. Data of 5518 cancer patients who received at least one cycle of ICIs were extracted from a large network of health care organizations. ICI treatment groups were classified by the first ICI agent(s) (ipilimumab, nivolumab, pembrolizumab, cemiplimab, avelumab, atezolizumab, or durvalumab) or its class (PD-1 inhibitors, PD-L1 inhibitors, CTLA4-inhibitors, or their combination (ipilimumab + nivolumab)). Time to first cardiac adverse event (CAE) (arrhythmia, acute myocardial infarction, myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, or pericarditis) developed within one year after ICI initiation was analyzed using a competing-risks regression model adjusting for ICI treatment groups, patient demographic and clinical characteristics, and cancer sites. By month 12, 12.5% developed cardiotoxicity. The most common cardiotoxicity was arrhythmia (9.3%) and 2.1% developed myocarditis. After adjusting for patient characteristics and cancer sites, patients who initiated on monotherapy with ipilimumab (adjusted Hazard Ratio (aHR): 2.00; 95% CI: 1.49-2.70; p < 0.001) or pembrolizumab (aHR: 1.21; 95% CI: 1.01-1.46; p = 0.040) had a higher risk of developing CAEs within one year compared to nivolumab monotherapy. Ipilimumab and pembrolizumab use may increase the risk of cardiotoxicity compared to other agents. Avelumab also estimated a highly elevated risk (aHR: 1.92; 95% CI: 0.85-4.34; p = 0.117) compared to nivolumab and other PD-L1 agents, although the estimate did not reach statistical significance, warranting future studies.
Project description:Opinion statementLung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Cytotoxic chemotherapy and tyrosine kinase inhibitors provide palliation and prolong survival, however, the median survival for patients with metastatic disease remains poor and more effective therapies are needed. Immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown promising results in phase I trials and are being evaluated in ongoing clinical trials in both small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. These include agents targeting the programmed cell death-1 receptor and its ligand (PD-1/PD-L1; notably nivolumab, pembrolizumab, MPDL3280A, and MEDI-4736) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4; ipilimumab and tremelimumab); these agents induce antitumor responses by inhibiting critical negative T cell regulators. In particular, the anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapies administered as single agent therapy in chemotherapy refractory patients have produced objective response rates ranging from 15 %-25 %, the majority of which were rapid and ongoing 1 year after starting therapy. Furthermore, the toxicity profile for these agents differs from that of cytotoxic chemotherapy but generally is much better tolerated. Promising biomarkers, particularly tumor expression of PD-L1 and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, may aid in treatment selection and stratification. Ongoing evaluation is needed to define the most appropriate timing and patient population that will benefit from therapy with an immune checkpoint inhibitors and the role of combining these agents with existing therapies including systemic therapy and radiation.
Project description:Ovarian cancer treatment strategy is mainly based on three pillars: cytoreductive surgery, platinum-based chemotherapy, and targeted therapies. The latter in the last decade has provided a remarkable improvement in progression free patients and, hopefully, in overall survival. In particular, poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors exploit BRCA 1/2 mutations and DNA damage response deficiencies, which are believed to concern up to 50% of high grade epithelial ovarian cancer cases. While these agents have an established role in ovarian cancer treatment strategy in BRCA mutated and homologous recombination deficient patients, an appropriate predictive molecular test to select patients is lacking in clinical practice. At the same time, the impressive results of immunotherapy in other malignancies, have opened the space for the introduction of immune-stimulatory drugs in ovarian cancer. Despite immune checkpoint inhibitors as a monotherapy bringing only modest efficacy when assessed in pretreated ovarian cancer patients, the combination with chemotherapy, anti-angiogenetics, PARP inhibitors, and radiotherapy is believed to warrant further investigation. We reviewed literature evidence on PARP inhibitors and immunotherapy in ovarian cancer treatment.
Project description:BackgroundAcute interstitial nephritis (AIN) is the most common renal immune-related adverse event after immune check-point inhibitors (ICI). We hypothesized that alternatively activated macrophages (CD163-M) could be involved in ICI-AIN and wished to evaluate the use of their soluble urinary form (us)CD163 as a non-invasive diagnostic marker.MethodsCD163-M infiltrates were evaluated by both immune-histochemistry and multiplex immunofluorescence and imaging. usCD163 was detected with ELLA technology and evaluated together with urinary creatinine to be expressed as a ratio to creatinuria in ng/mmol. Clinical data were collected to perform correlations with renal function assessed by estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR).ResultsA retrospective cohort of 63 ICI-exposed patients with tubular acute kidney injury profile requiring a biopsy were selected. AIN patients (n = 44) were compared to acute tubular necrosis (ATN) patients (n = 19). CD163-M staining was detectable in all ICI-AIN patients, which was significantly higher than in ATN patients (18.4% vs 3.6% of area, P = .005). CD163-M staining was restricted to the interstitial compartment. CD163-M infiltrate inversely correlated with initial eGFR (r = -0.6, P = .003), and was positively correlated with delta eGFR, reflecting a renal improvement outcome (r = 0.48; P = .02). usCD163 was well detected in urines of patients, but did not allow us to distinguish ATN from AIN patients at diagnosis. No correlation was observed, neither between usCD163 and CD163-M staining nor with renal response after 3 months of glucocorticoid tapering.ConclusionCD163-M are detected in ICI-AIN and correlate both with severity at diagnosis and better prognosis at 3 months. CD163-M may help us to distinguish AIN from ATN but, it does not allow us to assess ICI imputability. Although detected in urine, usCD163 is clearly not a surrogate biomarker for AIN diagnosis.