Association Between Imaging Findings of Airway Obstruction Adjacent to Lung Tumors and the Onset of Interstitial Lung Disease After Nivolumab.

BACKGROUND: Compared to conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown a significant efficacy in the treatment of lung cancer. Although interstitial lung disease (ILD) is an important adverse event in immunotherapy, risk factors for ILD remain unclear.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: In this multicenter cohort study (UMIN000025908), 201 patients who were treated with nivolumab were retrospectively reviewed. Associations between the incidence of ILD and patient characteristics were evaluated. ILD grade and progression-free survival were analyzed according to the presence or absence of imaging findings of airway obstruction adjacent to lung tumors (IAOT).

RESULTS: In the multivariate analysis, the odds ratio (OR) of ILD for patients with a history of radiation pneumonitis or IAOT was 3.96 (p=0.012) and 6.59 (p=0.004), respectively. ILD occurred in six (37.5%) out of 16 patients with IAOT and 19 (10.3%) out of 185 patients without IAOT. Three out of the six patients with ILD and IAOT had ILD of grade 4 or more. The median progression-free survival of patients with and without IAOT was 0.9 and 3.2 months, respectively (p<0.001).

CONCLUSION: IAOT was strongly associated with the occurrence of ILD after therapy with nivolumab.