Background/aim: The impact of corticosteroids for the treatment of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) on the antitumor effect of programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) inhibitor is unclear.
Patients and methods: A total of 172 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with PD-1 inhibitors were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were divided into four groups: those who did not develop irAEs [1] and those who developed irAE and were either not treated with corticosteroids [2] or treated with low [3] or high doses [4], and overall survival (OS) was analyzed by the time of corticosteroid treatment. Landmark analysis was performed using Cox proportional hazard model with time-dependent covariates.
Results: A high-dose steroid treatment within 60 days correlated with a significantly worse OS than that of the group with irAEs without steroids (p=0.004). Moreover, there was no significant difference in OS between the irAE without steroid and low-dose steroid groups.
Conclusion: Early severe irAEs and high-dose corticosteroid treatment were poor prognostic factors in patients with NSCLC treated with PD-1 inhibitors.
Keywords: Immunotherapy; corticosteroids; immune-related adverse events; non-small cell lung cancer.
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