REVIEW   

Giornale Italiano di Dermatologia e Venereologia 2019 August;154(4):435-43

DOI: 10.23736/S0392-0488.18.06254-5

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Vitiligo-like lesions occurring in patients receiving anti-programmed cell death-1 therapies

Léa DOUSSET ¹, Katia BONIFACE ², Julien SENESCHAL ^{1, 2} ✉

¹ Department of Dermatology and Pediatric Dermatology, National Center for Rare Skin Disorders, Saint-André and Pellegrin Hospitals, Bordeaux, France; ² INSERM U1035, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France

Antibody-based therapeutics targeting programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) have shown strong efficacy in the treatment of metastatic cancers as melanoma. However, restoring the immune function with these therapies to target cancer cells leads to immune side effects including immune cutaneous events. Vitiligo-like lesions in patients receiving anti-PD-1 is one of the most common skin adverse event reported and the incidence seems to be higher than in patients receiving other immune-checkpoints therapies. Initially described in patients with metastatic melanoma, vitiligo-like lesions have now been reported in other metastatic cancers treated with anti-PD-1. Several reports suggest that this side effect could be different from spontaneously occurring vitiligo and could be associated with increased response to the therapy and patients’ survival. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the clinical presentation of vitiligo-like lesions occurring in patients receiving anti-PD-1, and the hypothesis to explain the mechanism involved in the development of these lesions.

KEY WORDS: Vitiligo; Apoptosis; Immune system phenomena; Neoplasms