US researchers have identified “a protective association” between immune-related toxic effects – either disease flares or immune-related adverse events – in people with autoimmune disease receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors for cancer.

The presence of autoimmune rheumatic diseases is not associated with worse survival outcomes among patients with lung cancer, researchers report.

A French database analysis lends further support for the use immune checkpoint inhibitors for cancer in patients with pre-existing autoimmune disease.

Patients with the autoimmune disorder vitiligo have a “markedly reduced” risk for developing malignancies of internal organs compared with other individuals, Korean researchers report.

The past medical history should include assessing history of autoimmune diseases because individuals with a known history of autoimmune disease have an increased risk of their disease worsening when receiving ICIs [9,10].

Flares and immune-related adverse events are common in patients with autoimmune disease who are receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors for cancer but can often be managed without discontinuing treatment, a systematic review suggests.

Children with autoimmune disorders have an increased cancer risk relative to the general population, but this risk appears to not be exacerbated by tumor necrosis factor inhibitor use, suggests an analysis of US administrative claims data.

. © 2018 Springer Healthcare part of the Springer Nature group See also: Immune checkpoint inhibitor use manageable for autoimmune disease patients

And the team concludes: “Continued evaluation of studies of patients with autoimmune diseases – including randomized clinical trials and population-based observational research – will be important to evaluate the relative contributions of immunosuppressant therapies and underlying disease pathogenesis to lymphoma risk.”

Autoimmune processes developed in pd1 knockout mice include arthritis, nephritis, and myocarditis 44 , 45 .

These immune-mediated adverse events mimic autoimmune diseases (such as dermatitis, inflammatory colitis, thyroiditis, hypophysitis and autoimmune hepatitis).