Oral immune-related adverse events in patients with and without inflammatory bowel disease receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.

What To Know

This retrospective cohort study examined oral immune-related adverse events (irAEs) among adult cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), comparing those with pre-existing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to matched non-IBD patients.

The abstract reports that IBD patients were less likely to develop oral irAEs (including xerostomia, dysgeusia, mucositis, dysphagia, and oral candidiasis), had a longer time to onset, and experienced fewer recurrences. Severity grades where reported were similar between groups, and ICI treatment interruptions and hospitalizations were uncommon.

The authors suggest that lower rates of oral irAEs in the IBD group could relate to concurrent IBD therapies started before or during ICI treatment, but the abstract does not establish causation.

This study is retrospective from a single tertiary cancer center and uses matching for some confounders; unmeasured differences in treatments, cancer types, or documentation could still influence results.

If you have IBD and are considering or receiving ICI therapy, this study adds data suggesting oral irAEs are not necessarily more frequent or severe than in patients without IBD. Discussing IBD treatment status and oral symptoms with your oncology and GI teams remains important.