Health

COVID-19 vaccine poses no risk of immunotoxicity in people treated with ICI

The findings are encouraging for cancer patients undergoing immune checkpoint blockade therapy and wanting a third dose of the vaccine, the researchers said.

Treated with immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) without increased risk of immunotoxicity COVID-19 vaccineincluding those just starting treatment, according to the results of a study published in National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

The findings are encouraging for cancer patients undergoing ICI treatment who want a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the researchers said.

Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center used electronic pharmacy records to identify individuals who received their first vaccination between January 16, 2021 and March 27, 2021. Included individuals also received FDA-approved ipilimumab, nivolumab, or pembrolizumab. Within 90 days before or after the first vaccination.

Investigators should assess age at vaccination, new-onset immune-related adverse events (AEs) of any grade after first vaccination, date and type of ICI administration, vaccine manufacturer data, deaths during follow-up, sex , and tumors were recorded. type, and .

A total of 408 people participated in the study. Approximately 30% breast cancer, 21% genitourinary cancer, 12% upper gastrointestinal (GI) cancer, 12% melanoma, 10% gynecologic cancer, 5% head and neck cancer, 3 % were treated for lower gastrointestinal cancer. , 5% sarcoma, 1% breast cancer, 1% glioblastoma, and 1% lymphoma.

Additionally, approximately 65% had pembrolizumab, 24% had nivolumab, 10% had ipilimumab plus nivolumab, 0.7% had ipilimumab, and 0.3% had all three agents. 95% of individuals had received his Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Researchers reported that 7% of individuals experienced new immune-related AEs during the follow-up period. Of those who had a history of immune-related AEs before vaccination, only 6% of them experienced immune-related AEs after vaccination.

All four patients who experienced grade 3 immune-related AR had a gastrointestinal event, three were treated with ipilimumab plus nivolumab and one was treated with pembrolizumab.

No one experienced a relapse of a previous immune-related AE after vaccination, and there were no significant differences in baseline characteristics or treatment between both groups, except for individuals starting new immunotherapeutic agents during the follow-up period. was.

Twenty-eight patients who received the first dose and ICI therapy on the same day did not develop immune-related AEs during the follow-up period.

Of those who started a new course of immunotherapy after vaccination, 17% developed an immune-related AE. After starting new immunotherapy, he had a median follow-up of 78.5 days.

According to the researchers, a limitation of this study was the lack of a time-aligned comparison group of individuals who had not received the COVID-19 vaccine but were on ICI therapy.

Furthermore, the sample size of this study was not large enough to determine the risk of rare post-vaccination events, including Guillain-Barré syndrome.

reference

Widman AJ, Cohen B, Park V, McClure T, Wolchok J, Kamboj M. Immune-related adverse events in COVID-19 vaccinated cancer patients who received immune checkpoint blockade. J Natl Compr Canc Netw2022;20(10):1134-1138.doi:10.6004/jnccn.2022.7048

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COVID-19 vaccine poses no risk of immunotoxicity in people treated with ICI