Safety and clinical efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors in advanced gastric cancer in the real world.

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with advanced gastric cancer in the real world.

METHODS: The retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical records of 402 patients with advanced gastric cancer who were admitted to the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital between December 2017 and April 2022 and who had received immunotherapy. Observation target: drug use, treatment, adverse reaction type and grade, objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), progression free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS).

RESULTS: By retrospectively analyzing the data of patients with advanced gastric cancer treated with ICIs previously admitted to our medical center, we found some clinical characteristic factors associated with the occurrence of irAEs as well as the efficacy and prognosis: the presence or absence of hypertension, whether or not to receive targeted therapies can predict the occurrence of immune-related adverse events (irAEs), and the more the presence of irAEs, the better the prognosis. These can help clinicians in clinical drug selection.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of this paper show that the occurrence of irAEs is associated with patients' OS. irAEs occurrence can prolong patients' OS. irAEs occurrence may serve as a surrogate marker for ICIs.