Acute reaction after administration of nimotuzumab: a concern

Kamon Chaiyasit, Viroj Wiwanitkit

1Vital Life, Bumrungrad Hospital, Bangkok Thailand

2Visiting Professor, Hainan Medical University, China

Acute reaction after administration of nimotuzumab: a concern

Kamon Chaiyasit1*, Viroj Wiwanitkit2

1Vital Life, Bumrungrad Hospital, Bangkok Thailand

2Visiting Professor, Hainan Medical University, China

[1] Rivera F, Vega-Villegas ME, Lopez-Brea MF, Marquez R. Current situation of Panitumumab, Matuzumab, Nimotuzumab and Zalutumumab. Acta Oncol 2008; 47(1): 9-19.

[2] Spicer J. Technology evaluation: nimotuzumab, the Center of Molecular Immunology/YM BioSciences/Oncoscience. Curr Opin Mol Ther 2005; 7(2): 182-191.

[3] Ma NY, Cai XW, Fu XL, Li Y, Zhou XY, Wu XH, et al. Safety and efficacy of nimotuzumab in combination with radiotherapy for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus. Int J Clin Oncol 2013 May 21.

ment heading

10.1016/S2221-6189(14)60038-X

Conflict of interest statement

*Corresponding author: Dr. Kamon Chaiyasit, Vital Life, Bumrungrad Hospital, Bangkok Thailand.

Sir, the immunotherapy is the new modality in medical treatment. This kind of treatment has been introduced for using in oncology for a few years and the nimotuzumab is a new immunotype anticancer drug that is useful for management of several cancers[1,2]. Here, the authors would like to share experience on using this drug. As a immunotype drug, the concern is on the adverse effect due to the immunoreaction of the patients. Of overall 6 cases who used this drug in the experience of the author, there is a case with acute reaction after administration of nimotuzumab. The case is a male patient with liver cancer and the reaction occurred within 10 min after receiving of nimotuzumab. The reaction is acute shaking and chill. In fact, this kind of reaction can be seen in any immunotherapy. Nevertheless, there has been no official report on the prevalence of this acute complication of nimotuzumab and this report is the first world report on this topic. Based on this work, the one-sixth rate seems to be very high and should be a concern for the oncologist in using this drug. In fact, a recent report from China also documented for the high rate of adverse effect in using nimotuzumab combining with radiotherapy. In that report, it was quoted that “Grade 3-4 adverse events and toxicities occurred in 50% of the patients[3].” Nevertheless, this is only the preliminary observation and further study to accumulate the information is suggested.

We declare that we have no conflict of interest