Safety Profile of Immunotherapy Combined With Antiangiogenic Therapy in Patients With Melanoma: Analysis of Three Clinical Studies

Objective: To describe the frequency and spectrum of treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) of immunotherapy combined with antiangiogenic therapy in patients with melanoma.Methods: This retrospective cohort study included three clinical trials on patients with stage III/IV melanoma treated with anti-PD 1 and antiangiogenic therapy.Results: We analyzed data from 72 patients with a median follow-up time of 25.9 months (95% CI, 9.1-42.7 m). The median treatment duration was 7.5 months (range, 0.7-42.8 m), and the median of treatment cycles was 11.0 (range, 1-90). Most patients (70 of 72 or 97.2%) experienced TRAEs (mostly grades 1 or 2). No drug-related deaths were reported. Most TRAEs were hepatic (75%), endocrine (72.2%), skin (65.3%), and gastrointestinal tract (59.7%) manifestations, followed by myelosuppression (55.6%), renal dysfunction (55.6%), and dyslipidaemia (54.2%). The adverse event (AE) spectra were similar between regimens. Using multivariate Cox proportional risk models showed that hypertension was associated with a long PFS. According to our multivariable logistic regression models, TRAEs were not associated with ORR.Conclusion: We found that the prevalence of AEs was higher than that of anti-PD-1 monotherapy. Most of the AEs were mild. The AE spectra were similar to those seen after anti-PD-1 or antiangiogenic therapy monotherapy, without unexpected AEs. Immunotherapy combined with antiangiogenic therapy was well tolerated.