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Aims: A varied spectrum of histopathological changes has been associated with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) colitis. This study was performed to evaluate the prevalence of different histopathological patterns of injury in patients with ICI colitis and their association with specific immune check-point inhibitors., Methods and Results: Biopsies from patients with clinically and histologically confirmed ICI colitis were reviewed blindly to determine the predominant pattern of injury and to quantitate discrete histological parameters using the Geboes score. Paneth cell metaplasia, intraepithelial lymphocytes, abnormal subepithelial collagen and degree of crypt epithelial apoptosis was also recorded. A total of 86 patients with ICI colitis (ipilimumab, n = 14; ipilimumab + nivolumab, n = 29; nivolumab, n = 20 and pembrolizumab, n = 23) were included. The patterns of injury identified included diffuse active colitis (n = 22), chronic active colitis (n = 22), lymphocytic colitis (LC, n = 16), collagenous colitis (CC, n = 14), graft-versus-host disease-like colitis (n = 7) and mixed colitis (n = 5). Patients on ipilimumab were more likely to have a diffuse active colitis pattern without features of chronicity (P < 0.01) and less likely to have LC (P < 0.05) compared to other ICIs. LC and CC were more common in patients on nivolumab and pembrolizumab relative to other groups (P < 0.05). Chronic active colitis was most frequent in nivolumab patients (P < 0.05), and these patients had received more ICI doses and had been on ICI treatment longer compared to other treatment groups., Conclusions: ICI colitis should be considered in the differential diagnosis of all the common inflammatory patterns of colitis and shows medication specific differences in patterns of injury., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: In the current study, the authors assessed the risks and outcomes of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) rechallenge in patients with resolved grade 3 to 4 ICI hepatitis because current guidelines recommend permanent ICI discontinuation in these patients. Methods: The authors performed a retrospective cohort study from 2010 through 2019 of patients with melanoma who were treated with ≥1 ICIs and who recovered from grade 3 to 4 ICI hepatitis. The primary outcome was hepatitis recurrence and the secondary outcome was the development of any immune‐related adverse event (irAE) requiring the discontinuation of ICI rechallenge. Best overall response and time to all‐cause death were compared between the patients who did and those who did not undergo ICI rechallenge. Grading was performed using the National Cancer Institute Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (version 5.0). Results: Of the 102 patients with melanoma who developed high‐grade ICI hepatitis, 31 underwent ICI rechallenge. Although 15 of 31 patients (48%) developed an irAE of any grade, only 6 patients (19%) required ICI discontinuation due to irAE severity (4 of 29 patients [14%] rechallenged with anti–PD‐1 or anti‐PD‐L1 and 2 of 2 patients [100%] rechallenged with ipilimumab). Recurrent hepatitis accounted for 4 of these 6 cases. Rechallenged patients who did not require ICI discontinuation were found to be significantly less likely to receive ipilimumab rather than anti–PD‐1 or anti‐PD‐L1 monotherapy (0% vs 33%; relative risk (RR), 0.1 [95% CI, 0.1‐0.3; P =.032]) and significantly less likely to be rechallenged with their original ICI (8% vs 50%; RR, 0.2 [95% CI, 0.1‐0.7; P =.038]). There was no difference noted with regard to best overall response or time to death between rechallenged and non‐rechallenged patients. Conclusions: ICI therapy can be resumed in patients with melanoma who have recovered from grade 3 to 4 ICI hepatitis with a modest risk of serious irAEs. It remains unclear whether ICI retreatment improves clinical outcomes. After resolution of high‐grade immune‐mediated hepatitis, the majority of patients who are rechallenged with immune checkpoint inhibitors can remain on treatment without developing serious immune‐related adverse events. It remains unclear whether immune checkpoint inhibitor retreatment improves clinical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a lack of predictive markers informing on the risk of colitis in patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). The aim of this study was to identify potential factors associated with development of ICI colitis.Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of melanoma patients at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who received PD-1, CTLA-4, or combination ICIs between May 2011 to October 2017. Clinical and laboratory characteristics associated with pathologically confirmed ICI colitis were evaluated using multivariable logistic regression analyses. External confirmation was performed on an independent cohort from Massachusetts General Hospital.Results: The discovery cohort included 213 patients of whom 37 developed ICI colitis (17%). Vitamin D use was recorded in 66/213 patients (31%) before starting ICIs. In multivariable regression analysis, vitamin D use conferred significantly reduced odds of developing ICI colitis (OR 0.35, 95% CI 0.1-0.9). These results were also demonstrated in the confirmatory cohort (OR 0.46, 95% CI 0.2-0.9) of 169 patients of whom 49 developed ICI colitis (29%). Pre-treatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) ≥5 predicted reduced odds of colitis (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.1-0.9) only in the discovery cohort.Conclusions: This is the first study to report that among patients treated with ICIs, vitamin D intake is associated with reduced risk for ICI colitis. This finding is consistent with prior reports of prophylactic use of vitamin D in ulcerative colitis and graft-versus-host-disease. This observation should be validated prospectively in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original version of the article unfortunately contained an error in the Table 2. In the column 'Motilityimmune-related adverse event' of Table 2, the term 'Intestinal pseudo-obstruction' was inadvertently removed in the final version. Corrected Table 2 is given below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]