Safety and tolerability of immune checkpoint therapies and related adverse effects at a tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

e14082 Background: Immunotherapies associated with many toxicities with a potential immune-mediated cause and has been associated with many adverse events in the literature. As the incidence of emergency room (ER) visits in adult patients receiving immune checkpoint therapies and most frequent immune-related adverse events are not yet established well for our population since this class of medications is newly introduced in the oncology field. This research is aimed to shed the light on this new class of medications. Methods: This is a single-center retrospective cohort study to determine incidence of ER visits in adult patients receiving immune checkpoint therapies and to explore most frequent related adverse events. The study involved adult patients who were treated at King Abdulaziz Medical City. Study participants were identified by identified using our electronic health care system to identify patients who were treated with immunotherapies during the study period (January 2016 to December 2018). Inclusion criteria was patients aged more than 18 years who had received immunotherapies. Results: A total of 53 patients met the specified inclusion criteria for our study. The number of patients in each treatment group were as follows: Nivolumab 37, Atezolizumab 10 and Pembrolizumab 6. Average age was 59 years. The percentages of cancer patients presenting to the ER with various related adverse effects after beginning immune checkpoint therapy were (65%) Nivolumab, (80%) Atezolizumab and (83%) Pembrolizumab. The average number of ER visits after beginning immune checkpoint therapy was 3 visits (SD = 2.8). Renal adverse events were occurred following the immunotherapy use, 9 patients (17%) and none of cases experienced a grade≧3 event. 13 patients (24.5%) experienced hepatic adverse event. Only one patient experienced a grade≧3 event that lead to discontinuation of treatment. For diarrhea, among all patients received the immunotherapies, 14 (26%) experience diarrhea and five of them experience grade≧3 event. Thyroxine abnormalities occurred in 7 patients (13%) after use of immunotherapies. (7.5 %) of patients had pneumonitis with immunotherapy. Other adverse events were noted with immune therapies (skin reaction, nausea, vomiting, thrombocytopenia, neutropenia and neurological adverse events). All others adverse events that is reported had a grade 1-2 adverse events. Conclusions: Patients treated with immunotherapies may have a spectrum of adverse drug events that might lead to discontinue the treatment and increase ER visits.