Abstract
Pembrolizumab induced hepatitis has received increasing attention, while pembrolizumab induced cholangitis is poorly understood. This study investigated the clinical features, treatment, and outcome of pembrolizumab induced cholangitis. Case reports, case series and clinical studies of pembrolizumab induced cholangitis were collected by retrieving English and Chinese database from inception until October 30, 2023. Fifty patients with cholecystitis entered our study with a median age of 68 years (range 48, 89). The median time to onset of cholecystitis was 1.1 months (range 0.3, 24), and the median number of cycles was 5 cycles (range 1, 27) after initial administration. Most of the patients had no clinical symptoms and only showed elevated biliary enzymes (24 cases, 48.0%), while some patients showed jaundice (12 cases, 24.0%), abdominal pain (10 cases, 20.0%) and fever (7 cases, 14.0%). The median alkaline phosphatase value was 1111 IU(range 130, 3515) and the median glutamyltransferase value was 649.5 IU(range 159, 3475). The imaging features of gallbladder were bile duct dilatation, stenosis and bile duct wall thickening and irregularity. Bile duct biopsy showed inflammatory infiltration, mainly CD8 + T cell infiltration. Immunosuppression treatment resulted in complete response in 4 cases (8.0%), partial response in 28 cases (56.0%), and poor response in 15 cases (30.0%). Cholangitis is a rare and serious adverse effect of pembrolizumab. Clinicians should be aware of the possibility of cholangitis when administering pembrolizumab. Steroids may not be effective in most patients with cholecystitis, and ursodeoxycholic acid may be an option.
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This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (No.2023JJ30847).
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Weilun Fang and Chunjiang Wang conceived the idea of this article. Weilun Fang, Wei Sun,, Wei** Fang and Jian Zhang participated in data collection, reporting, writing, and editing the manuscript. Weilun Fang, Chunjiang Wang revised the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript. The authors declare that all data were generated in-house and that no paper mill was used.
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Fang, W., Sun, W., Fang, W. et al. Clinical features, treatment, and outcome of pembrolizumab induced cholangitis. Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Arch Pharmacol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00210-024-03135-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00210-024-03135-2