Acute pneumothorax due to immunotherapy administration in non-small cell lung cancer

Chrysanthi Sardeli; Paul Zarogoulidis; Konstantinos Romanidis; Panagoula Oikonomou; Konstantinos Sapalidis; Haidong Huang; Chong Bai; Wolfgang Hohenforst-Schmidt; Kosmas Tsakiridis; Bojan Zaric; Branislav Perin; Aris Ioannidis; Sofia Baka; Konstantinos Drevelegas; Maria Kosmidou; Christoforos Kosmidis

doi:10.1016/j.rmcr.2020.101258

Acute pneumothorax due to immunotherapy administration in non-small cell lung cancer

Respir Med Case Rep. 2020 Oct 25:31:101258. doi: 10.1016/j.rmcr.2020.101258. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Chrysanthi Sardeli¹, Paul Zarogoulidis^{1

2}, Konstantinos Romanidis³, Panagoula Oikonomou³, Konstantinos Sapalidis², Haidong Huang⁴, Chong Bai⁴, Wolfgang Hohenforst-Schmidt⁵, Kosmas Tsakiridis⁶, Bojan Zaric⁷, Branislav Perin⁷, Aris Ioannidis⁸, Sofia Baka⁹, Konstantinos Drevelegas¹⁰, Maria Kosmidou¹¹, Christoforos Kosmidis²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacology & Clinical Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
² 3rd Department of Surgery, ''AHEPA'' University Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Medical School, Thessaloniki, Greece.
³ Second Department of Surgery, University Hospital of Alexandroupolis, Medical School, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece.
⁴ Department of Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine, Changhai Hospital, The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China.
⁵ Sana Clinic Group Franken, Department of Cardiology / Pulmonology / Intensive Care / Nephrology, ''Hof'' Clinics, University of Erlangen, Hof, Germany.
⁶ Thoracic Surgery Department, ''Interbalkan'' European Medical Center, Thessaloniki, Greece.
⁷ Institute for Pulmonary Diseases of Vojvodina, Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad, Serbia.
⁸ Surgery Department, ''Genesis'' Private Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece.
⁹ Oncology Department, ''Intebalkan'' European Medical Center, Thessaloniki, Greece.
¹⁰ Radiology Department, ''Euromedica'' Private Radiology Laboratory, Thessaloniki, Greece.
¹¹ Internal Medicine, University Hospital of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece.

Abstract

Nowadays we have novel therapies for advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer. Immunotherapy has been introduced in the market for several years and until now its administration is mostly based on the programmed death-ligand 1. First line treatment with immunotherapy can be administered alone if programmed death-ligand 1 expression is ≥ 50%. All therapies for advanced stage disease have advantages and disadvantages, immunotherapy until now has presented mild adverse effects when compared to chemotherapy. However; it is known to induce inflammatory response to different tissues within the body. In our case acute pneumothorax was induced after immunotherapy administration.

Keywords: EBUS; Immunotherapy; Non-small cell lung cancer; Pembrolizumab; Pneumothorax.

Publication types

Case Reports