ABSTRACT
Background: Immunotherapy in the form of immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) is now well established as acornerstone for treating many advanced malignancies. Nevertheless, as the number of indications for checkpoint inhibitors increases, so does the risk of immune-related adverse events (irAEs).
Methods: We report two patient cases who, after being treated by an anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), presented with grade III dyspnea due to pneumonitis.
Discussion: Immunotherapy was discontinued and the patients required treatment with systemic corticosteroids. At the time of writing, both patients are still in complete response (CR), more than 1year beyond immunotherapy discontinuation. We discuss our cases with regard to recent literature reports on immune-related pneumonitis and persistence of response beyond discontinuation.
Graphical abstract
Radio thorax of our first patient
Bibasal pulmonary parenchymal infiltrates/consolidation with associated right pleural effusion. No mass, no pulmonary nodule, no enlarged hilum is observed.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.