Association between Cutaneous Immune-related Adverse Events that Developed during Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Treatment and Oncologic Outcomes

Abstract

We retrospectively evaluated 110 patients who developed cutaneous symptoms during their immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment for various malignancies and compared the clinical classification of their symptoms, severity, and predictors of treatment response between those patients with a controlled primary malignancy (the effective treatment group) and those without (the disease progression group). Prevalence of vitiligo, asteatotic eczema and cutaneous immune-related adverse events (irAEs) as well as irAEs involving more than two organs were significantly higher in patients with a controlled primary malignancy. The comparison between the effective treatment group and the disease progression group showed that the former had higher lymphocyte counts before treatment and during the appearance of skin symptoms and lower neutrophil-lymphocyte ratios before and after the appearance of skin symptoms. Longitudinal hematologic analysis may provide a predictive indicator for skin lesions and treatment response.