Immune-related adverse events and outcomes among pan-cancer patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors: A monocentric real-world observational study.

BACKGROUND: Real-world evidence on immune-related adverse events (irAEs) are relatively insufficient. Herein patterns and outcomes of irAEs after administration of anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) and its legend 1 (PD-L1) antibodies were investigated. METHODS: Patients treated with anti-PD-1/PD-L1 drugs from January 2018 to September 2021 at Huadong Hospital, Fudan University were included. Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) was used for irAEs evaluation. The primary endpoints were the clinical description of irAEs. RESULTS: Two hundred and forty-one solid tumor patients were included, with lung cancer as the most common tumor type (56%). 187 (77.6%) patients presented any kind of irAEs. The median time to any irAE onset was 28 (95% CI 24-32) days. Skin toxicities are the most common irAEs (46.1%) and the irAEs (36.5%) occurred earliest after immune-checkpoint inhibitors. The most frequently occurred all-grade irAEs were rash (23.7%), myelosuppression (20.7%), and hepatic injury (19.5%). 23 (9.5%) patients died of severe irAEs, which consists of 10 patients with pneumonitis, four colitis, four myocarditis, and one each for gastritis, pulmonary embolism, myelosuppression, hypophysitis, and encephalitis. Patients with any irAE onset had significantly longer progression-free survival (PFS) (p = 0.013) and overall survival (OS) (p = 0.007), respectively, than patients without irAEs. In addition, patients with skin toxicities (p = 0.012) or blood toxicities (p = 0.015) had achieved a longer PFS, than those without corresponding toxitities, respectively. CONCLUSION: Most irAEs are mild and manageable, while some irAEs can present at later time or can be life-threatening, especially pneumonitis as we observed. Patients with any irAE onset may achieve a better prognosis than those without irAEs, and presentation of skin or blood toxicities will indicate a better PFS.

Mucosal Associated Invariant T Cells Were Activated and Polarized Toward Th17 in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by airway limitation accompanied with infiltration of inflammatory cells. Mucosal associated invariant T (MAIT) cells can recognize bacteria and play an important role in controlling host immune responses by producing cytokines. In this study, we characterized the function and the ability of MAIT cells to secrete cytokines measured by flow cytometry. In COPD patients, MAIT cells have the ability to produce more IL-17 and less IFN-γ compared to healthy individuals. We found that HLA-DR expression levels reflected the degree of inflammation and the proportion of IL-17 was significantly correlated with lung function in peripheral blood. In addition, we found that MAIT cells were highly expressed in the lung, and the increased expression of CXCR2, CXCL1 indicated that MAIT cells had the potential to migrate to inflammatory tissues. This evidence implies that MAIT cells may play a potential role in COPD immunopathology.

Complete mitochondrial genome of Himalayan buzzard (Buteo buteo burmanicus).

In this study, the complete sequence of the mitochondrial (mt) genome of Buteo buteo burmanicus was determined. This mitogenome was 18,231 bp in length, containing 13 protein-coding genes, 2 rRNA genes, 22 tRNA genes, a control region (CR) and a pseudo-control region (ψCR). The overall base composition of the heavy strand was A, 30.8%; G, 13.2%; C, 31.8%; and T, 24.2%, with a slight AT bias of 65.1%. The complete mitogenomic data may provide more informative for phylogenetic approach for soft corals phylogeny especially for Buteo species.