A retrospective observational study on cutaneous adverse events induced by immune checkpoint inhibitors

BACKGROUND: Cutaneous adverse events (CAEs) related to oncological therapies are a common scenario in daily clinical practice. METHODS: This is a retrospective observational study collecting the data regarding CAEs of patients treated with immune checkpoints inhibitors (ICIs) in four different Italian centers. RESULTS: Of 323 patients included, 305 were evaluable for this analysis; 182 patients (59.7%) had metastatic cutaneous melanoma (CM), 99 (32.5%) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 24 (7.8%) renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The most frequent CAEs that we found, considering all the 305 patients, were pruriginous maculopapular rash (10.2% of the patients), vitiligo-like areas (7.2% of the patients), psoriasiform rash (6.2% of the patients), asymptomatic maculopapular rash (4.6% of the patients), and lichenoid rash (4.3% of the patients). Vitiligo-like areas occurred more frequently in patients with CM, while a lichenoid rash was more frequently observed in patients with RCC. Treatment interruption was related to drug-induced CAEs in 15.4% of melanoma patients and 0.0% of lung and kidney patients. Patients developing a cutaneous adverse event had better overall response rate and higher progression free survival and overall survival than the patients without CAEs. CONCLUSIONS: Our study brings new information on the characteristics of CAEs related to ICIs treatment in three different types of cancers, CM, NSCLC and RCC.