Background:

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have achieved good health outcomes but it presents immunorelated adverse events (AEsir), sometimes serious and not very predictable.

Main objective:

To identify the immune-mediated adverse effects (irAE) associated with the use of pembrolizumab and to know its incidence, characteristics and treatment in our center. Material and methods: Observational and retrospective study including oncohematological cancer patients treated with pembrolizumab, excluding those who participated in clinical trials. Sociodemographic, clinical, and treatment-related variables were collected,including EAir. Statistical treatmentwas performed using the STATA/IC12.1 statistical package.

Results:

31 patients, 81% male, with a median age of 67 years (range 2688), the main diagnoses being lung cancer (55%) and melanoma (16%). Eighty-one percent of the patients had stage IV and PDL-1 positive in 71%. The median duration was 3.4 months (range 0.7-26). Seventy-seven percent of patients experienced AEir and the most frequent were: asthenia, lymphopenia and hypothyroidism. Regarding severity, 91% were mild or moderate and 9% were grade 3. The most serious adverse reactions were encephalitis, nephritis, grade 3 anemia, lichen planus and demyelinating motor polyneuropathy. Eleven of the patients discontinued pembrolizumab, 36% of whom discontinued permanently.

Conclusions:

Most of the AEs that appeared were mild, although the severe cases observed and the variable time of onset make it important to continuously monitor the toxicity of these drugs during treatment, even after discontinuation.

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