Marco Donia: The ‘Influencers’ of Cancer Immunotherapy do not affect immunotherapy outcomes

Marco Donia, Associate Professor at National Center for Cancer Immune Therapy, Denmark, shared on LinkedIn:

“The ‘Influencers’ of Cancer Immunotherapy

NSAIDs (Eur J Cancer, Apr 2024) do not affect immunotherapy outcomes. NSAIDs are not influencers; they can be safely used with anti-PD-1.

What are the Influencers of Cancer Immunotherapy?

Factors that can (potentially) improve or impair the effects of Cancer Immunotherapy such as:

1. Drugs:

• Antibiotics (article 1 or article 2)
• Paracetamol
• Beta-blockers
• Proton pump inhibitors
• Immunosuppressive drugs – for obvious reasons

2. Environmental Factors:

• Time-of-day infusion
• Season of treatment initiation

3. Psychosocial Factors:

• Emotional Distress

4. Diet and Body Composition:

• Dietary Fibers, Probiotics, and Microbiome (article 1 or article 2)
• Body Mass Index
• Physical Activity

5. Sex

6. Many others – please share in the comments section!

Sara Valpione and collaborators investigated the prognostic and predictive value for the usage of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the EORTC 1325/KEYNOTE-054 phase III trial of pembrolizumab versus placebo in resected high-risk stage III melanoma.
Main finding: No association with recurrence-free survival, distant metastasis-free survival, or immune-related adverse events This paper is from a series of manuscripts (manuscript 1, manuscript 2) investigating associations of drugs usage and clinical outcomes in the KN-054 trial.

NSAIDs=non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (like diclofenac, aspirin, ibuprofen).

(Figure from 2021 review published in Cell about the “influencers” of cancer immunotherapy, freely available.)”

Source: Marco Donia/LinkedIn