The impact of concomitant medications on treatment outcomes in patients with cancer receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Abstract

During anticancer therapy, patients with cancer are often prescribed medications to combat concomitant health conditions and ameliorate cancer-associated side effects. Despite emerging evidence that many commonly prescribed medications have immunomodulating properties, surprisingly little is known about their interactions with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in the treatment of cancer. This Review provides an overview of recent advances characterizing the reported impact of concomitant drug use on ICI-mediated therapeutic response and associated immune-related adverse events, and the potential to repurpose immunomodulatory drugs for other comorbidities to enhance ICI treatment efficacy.