Abstract
A patient diagnosed with centrally located advanced lung adenocarcinoma with signs of large vessels infiltration, strongly expressing PD-L1, was candidate to first-line pembrolizumab. He had not complained of any bleeding manifestation before immunotherapy. 5 days after the first dose of pembrolizumab, the patient experienced massive, fatal hemoptysis. Given the central localization of the tumor and the strong PD-L1 expression, a contribution of rapid disease shrinkage is envisaged in determining the fatal hemorrhagic event. An attentive clinical attitude should be dedicated in centrally located and vessel-infiltrating tumors strongly expressing PD-L1 and candidate to anti-PD-1/PD-L1 agents.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. M Tiseo declares that he has attended MSD advisory boards. Other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Ethical conduct of research
The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved. The authors state that they have obtained verbal and written informed consent from the patient/patients for the inclusion of their medical and treatment history within this case report.