Cancer type and histology influence cutaneous immunotherapy toxicities: a multi-institutional cohort study

Cutaneous immune-related adverse events (cirAEs) are the most common toxicities to occur in the setting of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy. Identifying patients who are at increased risk of developing cirAEs may improve quality of life and outcomes.

To investigate the influence of cancer type and histology on the development of cirAEs in the setting of ICI therapy and survival outcomes.

This retrospective cohort study included patients recruited between 1 December 2011 and 30 October 2020. They received ICI from 2011 to 2020 with follow-up of outcomes through October 2021. We identified 3668 recipients of ICI therapy who were seen at Massachusetts General Brigham and Dana-Farber. Of these, 669 developed cirAEs. Records that were incomplete or categories of insufficient sample size were excluded from the study cohort. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate the impact of cancer organ system and histology on cirAE development, after adjusting for demographics, Charlson Comorbidity Index, ICI type, cancer stage at ICI initiation, and year of ICI initiation. Time-varying Cox proportional hazards modelling was used to examine the impact of cirAE development on mortality.

Compared with other nonepithelial cancers (neuroendocrine, leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma, sarcoma and central nervous system malignancies), cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma [cSCC; hazard ratio (HR) 3.57, P < 0.001], melanoma (HR 2.09, P < 0.001), head and neck adenocarcinoma (HR 2.13, P = 0.009), genitourinary transitional cell carcinoma (HR 2.15, P < 0.001) and genitourinary adenocarcinoma (HR 1.53, P = 0.037) were at significantly higher risk of cirAEs in multivariate analyses. The increased risk of cirAEs translated into an adjusted survival benefit for melanoma (HR 0.37, P < 0.001) and cSCC (HR 0.51, P = 0.011).

The highest rate of cirAEs and subsequent survival benefits were observed in cutaneous malignancies treated with ICI therapies. This study improves our understanding of patients who are at highest risk of developing cirAEs and would, therefore, benefit from appropriate counselling and closer monitoring by their oncologists and dermatologists throughout their ICI therapy. Limitations include its retrospective nature and cohort from one geography.