Author:
Choucair Khalil,Kelso Jesse D.,Duff Joseph R.,Cassidy Christine S.,Albrethsen Mary T.,Ashraf Mushtaq,Verghese Cherian,Oft Martin,Brunicardi F. Charles,Dworkin Lance,Nemunaitis John
Abstract
Anemia in cancer patients is associated with poor quality of life, reduced response to therapy, and decreased overall survival. We describe a case of a 56-year old woman with advanced metastatic non-small cell lung carcinoma who demonstrated marked response to a novel combinational immunotherapy approach involving a long-acting PEGylated construct of recombinant human Interleukin-10 with Nivolumab, an anti-PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor. While on treatment, the patient developed severe anemia and hyper-ferritinemia requiring RBC transfusion support. Here we discuss a possible novel immune mechanism of IL10-mediated anemia in correlation with tumor response.