Prophylactic Tocilizumab Reduces Toxicity, Boosts Efficacy in Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor–Treated Melanoma
Source: OncLive, December 2024
Matthew Hadfield, DO, discusses findings from a phase 2 study that used tocilizumab to reduce toxicities with immune checkpoint inhibitors in melanoma.
Interleukin-6 (IL-6) blockade could represent an important approach to managing immunotherapy-related toxicities that arise during melanoma management with immune checkpoint inhibitors, according to Matthew Hadfield, DO.
“I specialize in early-phase clinical trials as well as cutaneous malignancies, and I have a particular interest in immunotherapy toxicities, which unfortunately happen when we give immune checkpoint inhibitors and [other] immunotherapeutics; [these agents] can over-activate the immune system and cause immunotherapy toxicities,” Hadfield said in an interview with OncLive®. “We want to use the immune system to fight cancer, and we want to mitigate toxicities that [are associated] with immunotherapy. We’re still early in the discovery of biomarkers [to determine which patients are] going to develop toxicities and [which are] not. An interesting target is IL-6, which can be blocked by tocilizumab [Actemra], amongst other medications. Preclinical evidence shows that IL-6 overexpression can lead to therapeutic resistance to checkpoint inhibitors, and [IL-6] can also be a major cytokine in the development of toxicities.”