Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Apr 1;31(2):186-189.
doi: 10.1097/CMR.0000000000000724.

Unexpected pure red series aplastic anemia secondary to pembrolizumab treatment: a case report and literature review

Marina Meri-Abad  1 , Alberto Jacobo Cunquero Tomás, Alfonso Berrocal Jaime
Affiliations
Review

Unexpected pure red series aplastic anemia secondary to pembrolizumab treatment: a case report and literature review

Marina Meri-Abad et al. Melanoma Res. .

Abstract

Pembrolizumab is a treatment that has shown a survival benefit in patients with metastatic melanoma. Programmed death receptor 1 inhibitors are new therapeutic agents that produce clinical responses with a more manageable profile of adverse effects compared to chemotherapy. The most frequent adverse effects include fatigue, rash, myalgia, pyrexia and cough, with less frequent occurrence of immune-mediated adverse reactions such as colitis, pneumonitis, hepatitis and encephalitis. Immune-related hematological toxicities have been poorly described. Here we present the case of a patient with metastatic melanoma who develops pure red series aplasia after almost 3 years of treatment with pembrolizumab. To our knowledge, this is the first case of aplastic anemia during treatment with pembrolizumab, with some peculiarities compared to the published cases in the literature.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Ribas A, Puzanov I, Dummer R, Schadendorf D, Hamid O, Robert C, et al. Pembrolizumab versus investigator-choice chemotherapy for ipilimumab-refractory melanoma (KEYNOTE-002): a randomised, controlled, phase 2 trial. Lancet Oncol. 2015; 16:908–918.
    1. Robert C, Ribas A, Schachter J, Arance A, Grob JJ, Mortier L, et al. Pembrolizumab versus ipilimumab in advanced melanoma (KEYNOTE-006): post-hoc 5-year results from an open-label, multicentre, randomised, controlled, phase 3 study. Lancet Oncol. 2019; 20:1239–1251.
    1. Hamid O, Robert C, Daud A, Hodi FS, Hwu WJ, Kefford R, et al. Five-year survival outcomes for patients with advanced melanoma treated with pembrolizumab in KEYNOTE-001. Ann Oncol. 2019; 30:582–588.
    1. Dalle S, Schenker M, Sileni VC, Rodas IM, Grob J, Kudchadkar RR, et al. Adjuvant nivolumab versus ipilimumab in resected stage III or IV melanoma. N Engl J Med. 2017; 377:1824–1835.
    1. Guidelines CP. Management of toxicities from immunotherapy: ESMO clinical practice guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up † clinical practice guidelines. 2017; 28. (suppl_4):iv119–v142.

MeSH terms

Substances

LinkOut - more resources