Cachectic Cancer Patients: Immune to Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy?

Immune checkpoint inhibition is dramatically improving patient outcomes in diverse cancers, many of which responded poorly to traditional cytotoxic agents. Drivers of heterogeneous response to immune checkpoint therapy are poorly characterized. Cachectic cancer patients exhibit elevated pembrolizumab clearance and poor response, highlighting the immense therapeutic challenge posed by cancer cachexia.See related article by Turner et al., p. 5841.