Efectos cutáneos adversos causados por erlotinib

SEARCH: a phase III, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of sorafenib plus erlotinib in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma

PURPOSE

To compare the clinical outcomes of sorafenib plus either erlotinib or placebo in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in a multicenter, multinational, randomized, phase III trial.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Patients with advanced HCC and underlying Child-Pugh class A cirrhosis, who were naive to systemic treatment (N = 720), were randomly assigned to sorafenib plus either erlotinib (n = 362) or placebo (n = 358). The primary end point was overall survival (OS).

RESULTS

Median OS was similar in the sorafenib plus erlotinib and sorafenib plus placebo groups (9.5 v 8.5 months, respectively; hazard ratio [HR], 0.929; P = .408), as was median time to progression (3.2 v 4.0 months, respectively; HR, 1.135; P = .18). In the sorafenib/erlotinib arm versus the sorafenib/placebo arm, the overall response rate trended higher (6.6% v 3.9%, respectively; P = .102), whereas the disease control rate was significantly lower (43.9% v 52.5%, respectively; P = .021). The median durations of treatment with sorafenib were 86 days in the sorafenib/erlotinib arm and 123 days in the sorafenib/placebo arm. In the sorafenib/erlotinib and sorafenib/placebo arms, the rates of treatment-emergent serious AEs (58.0% v 54.6%, respectively) and drug-related serious AEs (21.0% v 22.8%, respectively) were similar. AEs matched the known safety profiles of both agents, but rates of rash/desquamation, anorexia, and diarrhea were higher in the sorafenib/erlotinib arm, whereas rates of alopecia and hand-foot skin reaction were higher in the sorafenib/placebo arm. Withdrawal rates for AEs during cycles 1 to 3 were higher in the sorafenib/erlotinib arm.

CONCLUSION

Adding erlotinib to sorafenib did not improve survival in patients with advanced HCC.

Spontaneous reporting of serious cutaneous reactions with protein kinase inhibitors

PURPOSE

Our aim was to describe all serious cutaneous adverse drug reactions (ADRs) spontaneously reported in France for all oral protein kinase inhibitors, their characteristics and whether they were labeled (reported in the Summary of Product Characteristics) or not.

METHODS

We performed a retrospective observational study in the French PharmacoVigilance Database, selecting for analysis serious cutaneous reactions of patients due to treatment with oral protein kinase inhibitors (erlotinib, gefitinib, imatinib, nilotinib, dasatinib, sunitinib, sorafenib, pazopanib, lapatinib, everolimus) between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 31 2010.

RESULTS

Ninety-four patients suffered from 115 serious cutaneous reactions due to oral protein kinase inhibitors. Serious cutaneous reactions more frequently reported were maculo-papular rash (mostly with imatinib), followed by hand-foot syndrome (specifically with sorafenib) and papulopustular rash (particularly with erlotinib). Patients were mostly males (63 %) with a mean age of 62.6 ± 15.4 years. Drug withdrawal was observed in 73.1 % of cases because of these cutaneous reactions. Delay of occurrence of the ADR varied from 11.5 to 58.5 days. Unlabeled serious reactions were found (17.4 %), including skin ulceration, vasculitis or purpura with sorafenib or sunitinib and drug rash with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms with imatinib.

CONCLUSION

Some of the serious ADRs spontaneously reported with oral protein kinase inhibitors are labeled and commonly reported in the literature, but others occur only rarely and unlabeled. In our study, most serious ADRs occurred in males within the 2 first months of treatment and were responsible for the withdrawal of therapy with protein kinase inhibitors.

A case of bullous dermatitis induced by erlotinib

Herein, we report a case of bullous dermatitis that occurred in a 61-year-old woman 5 days after beginning therapy with erlotinib for the treatment of stage IV pulmonary adenocarcinoma with metastases at the hypophyseal level. Skin reactions are the most common adverse drug reactions (ADRs) associated with epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase (EGFR-TK) inhibitors, and acneiform rash is the most frequently reported ADR in patients treated with erlotinib. To our knowledge, this is the first case of bullous dermatitis induced by erlotinib. This report highlights the need for additional research in the field of skin toxicity of EGFR-TK inhibitors.