Severe terminal ileitis induced by single-agent nivolumab administered every four weeks.

INTRODUCTION: Use of immune checkpoint inhibitors has expanded to a variety of malignancies including hepatocellular carcinoma, where nivolumab and pembrolizumab have shown durable responses in approximately a sixth of patients. CASE REPORT: We report herein a patient with metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma who achieved a durable response to the second-line agent nivolumab administered intravenous 240 mg every two weeks. After 18 months of therapy, nivolumab schedule was changed to intravenous 480 mg every four weeks, per patient's request and for convenience of administration. Four days after this change, the patient developed severe terminal ileitis.Management and outcome: This condition was managed in hospital with intravenous steroids. The patient improved clinically and was discharged on an oral steroid taper. A month later, nivolumab was reinstated at 200 mg intravenous infusions every two weeks, without any re-occurrence of terminal ileitis to date as of six months after the probable drug reaction. DISCUSSION: To our knowledge, this is the first report of terminal ileitis with nivolumab administered every four weeks. As postmarketing evaluation of nivolumab continues, similar side effects may be observed. Prompt diagnosis and steroid therapy in these cases are imperative to ensure a favorable outcome. Resuming immunotherapy once the adverse event has resolved appears to be a safe option.

Management and clinical outcomes in uterine malignant mixed Müllerian tumor: Lessons from a single-institution series.

Malignant mixed Müllerian tumor remains an important contributor to morbidity and mortality in women with uterine cancer. Surgery is the primary treatment modality, followed by chemotherapy and/or radiation for advanced disease or high-risk patients. Clinico-epidemiologic characteristics and outcomes in older versus younger women with Malignant mixed Müllerian tumor may differ. We analyzed and now report on 15 consecutive patients with uterine Malignant mixed Müllerian tumor treated at our institution from 2000 to 2018. The mean age at diagnosis was 65 years; 60% (9/15) patients were overweight/obese. Forty-six percent (7/15) had hypercholesterolemia, an association not previously linked with Malignant mixed Müllerian tumor in the literature. All patients but one had surgical excision of the tumor. A third of patients received adjuvant radiation therapy. A majority of patients received chemotherapy; the preferred regimen was carboplatin-paclitaxel. The patients older than 70 had a tendency towards a more advanced disease stage at diagnosis and a significantly shorter cancer-specific survival than their younger counterparts (6 months vs. 102 months (hazard ratio 1.32, p = 0.02)). Our study's conclusions are restricted due to its relatively small size, retrospective design, and some variation in the chemotherapy doses administered in individual patients. Larger studies are needed to confirm the significance of our findings.