Novel immune‐modulating anticancer drugs are being used with increasing frequency. With increased use, there are more frequent cases of toxicities caused by these drugs, termed immune‐related adverse events (irAEs). We present a case in which we successfully treated a case of severe, steroid‐refractory, nivolumab‐induced myocarditis with therapeutic plasma exchange (TPE). Nivolumab is an immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) which blocks programmed death receptor‐1 (PD‐1). This blockade allows for enhanced T‐cell function and increased anti‐tumor response. The patient presented with signs and symptoms of heart failure and was found to have a significantly depressed cardiac ejection fraction. Over the course of her five TPE procedures, she improved clinically and was discharged home with improved left ventricular ejection function. This case suggests an emerging role of TPE in the management of severe ICI‐induced toxicity, such as myocarditis.
Despite its appealing feature of yielding rapid results, the PIFA assay is inadequate as a sole screening test for HIT because of its high probability of missing many true cases of HIT.
Platelet dysfunction is considered when patients present with mucocutaneous type bleeding with a normal platelet count and von Willebrand disease have been ruled out. Laboratory investigation of platelet dysfunction may include a PFA-100 as a screening test and platelet aggregation study for confirmation. If these tests are
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.