Pneumatosis intestinalis post steroid use in a patient with immune-related adverse events: Case report, literature review and FAERS analysis

Abstract

Introduction: The accurate diagnosis of pneumatosis intestinalis (PI) is increasing despite patients’ limited identification of etiologic factors. Recently a patient with lung squamous carcinoma who developed pneumatosis intestinalis following methylprednisolone administration for immune-related adverse events was treated at our hospital. Subsequent a literature review and an analysis of the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database enabled the identification of additional cases of pneumatosis intestinalis.Methods: A literature review of the MEDLINE/PubMed and Web of Science Core Collection databases using standard pneumatosis intestinalis search terms to identify published cases of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) or steroids causing pneumatosis intestinalis were performed. A separate retrospective pharmacovigilance study of FAERS enabled the extraction of unpublished cases of pneumatosis intestinalis between the first quarter of 2005 and the third quarter of 2022. Disproportionality and Bayesian analyses were performed to identify signal detection in reported odds ratios, proportional reporting ratios, information components, and empirical Bayesian geometric means.Results: Ten case reports of steroid-related pneumatosis intestinalis were retrieved from six published studies. The implicated drug therapies included pre-treatment with steroids before chemotherapy, combination therapy with cytotoxic agents and steroids, and monotherapy with steroids. In the FAERS pharmacovigilance study, 1,272 cases of immune checkpoint inhibitors or steroid-related pneumatosis intestinalis were incidentally reported. The signal detected in five kinds of immune checkpoint inhibitors and six kinds of steroids implied a positive correlation between the drugs and adverse events.Conclusion: Steroids might be the etiologic factors in the current case of pneumatosis intestinalis. Reports supporting the role of steroids in suspected cases of pneumatosis intestinalis can be found in literature databases and the FAERS database. Even so, as documented in FAERS, immune checkpoint inhibitors-induced pneumatosis intestinalis should not be excluded.

Pneumatosis Intestinalis, Pneumoperitoneum, Pneumoretroperitoneum, Pneumomediastinum, and Pneumobilia After Pembrolizumab Therapy: A Case Report

“…Together, the time to PI onset after initiating pembrolizumab and an increase in suspected pembrolizumab-induced PI cases [ 4 - 7 ] support pembrolizumab as the most likely catalyst here. Sperling et al found that in patients who developed suspected cases of ICI-induced PI, the median time to onset after initiating the drug was seven months and occurred within one year of the most recent dose [ 5 ].…”

“…More recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), an emerging class of anticancer drugs typically reserved for treating resistant cancer, have been associated with PI rarely [5]. There are limited studies regarding the implication of pembrolizumab, a programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor, in developing PI [4][5][6][7]. Here, we present an unusual case of a 50-year-old female patient previously treated with pembrolizumab for the recurrence of triple-negative breast cancer.…”