Cardiac Toxicity Associated with Cancer Immunotherapy and Biological Drugs

Abstract

Cancer immunotherapy significantly contributed to an improvement in the prognosis of cancer patients. Immunotherapy, including human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-targeted therapies, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), and chimeric antigen receptor-modified T (CAR-T), share the characteristic to exploit the capabilities of the immune system to kill cancerous cells. Trastuzumab is a monoclonal antibody against HER2 that prevents HER2-mediated signaling; it is administered mainly in HER2-positive cancers, such as breast, colorectal, biliary tract, and non-small-cell lung cancers. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) inhibit the binding of CTLA-4 or PD-1 to PDL-1, allowing T cells to kill cancerous cells. ICI can be used in melanomas, non-small-cell lung cancer, urothelial, and head and neck cancer. There are two main types of T-cell transfer therapy: tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (or TIL) therapy and chimeric antigen receptor-modified T (CAR-T) cell therapy, mainly applied for B-cell lymphoma and leukemia and mantle-cell lymphoma. HER2-targeted therapies, mainly trastuzumab, are associated with left ventricular dysfunction, usually reversible and rarely life-threatening. PD/PDL-1 inhibitors can cause myocarditis, rare but potentially fulminant and associated with a high fatality rate. CAR-T therapy is associated with several cardiac toxic effects, mainly in the context of a systemic adverse effect, the cytokines release syndrome.