Why the study?
Increasing use of cancer immunotherapy has led to life-threatening immune-related adverse events, requiring clinician awareness of potential cardiotoxicity and its recommended investigation and treatment.
Highlights the importance of recognizing and managing acute cardiotoxicity and other life-threatening immune-related adverse events in patients receiving cancer immunotherapy.
Cardiologists must recognize rising immunotherapy-related emergencies; Level 5 data leaves management protocols open for study.
Recent advances in immune therapy for cancer have significantly improved the clinical outcomes of patients with advanced cancers, where prognosis has historically been very poor. With these new treatments have come new toxicities and, as the use of immunotherapy increases, we will see an increasing incidence of immune-related adverse events, with patients presenting as an emergency. It is important that all cardiologists, and other physicians who see these patients, are aware of life-threatening immune-related toxicities, in addition to their recommended investigation and treatment. We describe a patient with acute cardiotoxicity secondary to immune therapy to illustrate the complexity of these adverse cardiovascular events, providing recommendations for screening, diagnosis and management.
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Findlay et al. (2020) studied this question.
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