Serial Troponin for Early Detection of Nivolumab Cardiotoxicity in Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients.

CONCLUSION: Tn+ may occur in NSCLC patients treated with nivolumab, but in most cases it does not indicate nivolumab cardiotoxicity. In some cases, however, a careful interpretation of troponin alteration, especially at the beginning of therapy, enables identification of subclinical myocarditis, thus allowing early cardiac treatment.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Myocarditis is a rare but serious adverse event of immune checkpoint blockade with nivolumab, which needs to be recognized as soon as possible. This article suggests that troponin, a user-friendly biomarker of myocardial cytotoxicity, might be useful for early detection of immune-mediated myocarditis. However, because troponin abnormalities might also be related to a number of conditions capable of causing myocardial oxygen demand-supply mismatch, a careful cardiac assessment should be performed in non-small cell lung cancer patients in order to properly interpret any troponin increase. According to the available evidence, monitoring troponin during the first weeks of treatment can be considered reasonable.
PMID: 29567824 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: The Oncologist - March 22, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Sarocchi M, Grossi F, Arboscello E, Bellodi A, Genova C, Dal Bello MG, Rijavec E, Barletta G, Rossi G, Biello F, Ghigliotti G, Canepa M, Mussap M, Brunelli C, Spallarossa P Tags: Oncologist Source Type: research