Immunotherapy is now considered to be a standard treatment for lung cancer whether used alone or in combination with chemotherapy.
About Immune checkpoint Inhibitors (ICIs)
ICIs prevent T lymphocytes (T cells) from identifying tumor cells and for that reason ICIs have become primary targets for immunotherapy. One of the major benefits of immunotherapy is that it has a lower toxicity than chemotherapy.
Since immunotherapy’s introduction, it has been credited with improving survival for metastatic lung cancer. Previous research indicates that patients in the U.S. treated during and prior to the era of immunotherapy had improved survival.
A word of caution. There is limited data among metastatic lung patients who have received ICIs. Researchers scanned data of metastatic lung cancer patients from Sept. 2014 through Sept. 2023 who were recipients of PD-1 or PD-L1 ICI within one year after diagnosis.
The one-year incidence of arterial thromboembolic events was evaluated using data from 10,554 adults such as:
- Venous events
- Deep vein thrombosis
- Arterial thromboembolic events
- Pulmonary events
- Pulmonary embolism
- Myocardial infarction
- Cerebrovascular accident (stroke)
1,630 of the recipients received one or more anti-PD-1 ICIs and 434 received one or more anti-PD-L1 ICIs.
Propensity-Score Matching (PSM)
PSM matches people from different groups who have similar characteristics. In PSM that compared patients who had received ICIs against those who did not, adverse events and disease progression happened more often in the group that received ICIs as compared to the group that did not receive ICIs (the control group).
Furthermore, cerebrovascular accident (stroke) was not as frequent in ICI users than non-users.
Thromboembolism
Clinicians treating patients who have metastatic lung cancer are alerted to thromboembolism symptoms which are blood clots that cause obstructions. Deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism are both termed venous thromboembolic diseases because they can cause obstructions in blood flow.
In conclusion: researchers found that ICIs had the effect of causing adverse events and disease progression more often in patients who received ICIs as opposed to the control group who did not.
Source: Healio.com
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Last modified: February 18, 2025
