9 severe adverse events to watch out for with checkpoint inhibitors
Pneumonitis is the leading cause of treatment-related death
29th April 2019
By Clare Pain
The largest study yet of adverse events from checkpoint inhibitor therapy for cancer suggests doctors should be alert for nine serious adverse events.
The meta-analysis or more than 100 clinical trials and nearly 19,000 patients found one in seven cancer patients treated with either programmed cell death (PD-1) inhibitors or programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) inhibitors experienced a severe adverse event (grade 3 or worse according to National Cancer Institute criteria).
While two-thirds of the patients had any