Cimpeanu E, Ahmed J, Zafar W, DeMarinis A, Bardarov SS, Salman S, Bloomfield D. Pembrolizumab - emerging treatment of pulmonary sarcomatoid carcinoma: A case report. World J Clin Cases 2020; 8(1): 97-102 [PMID: 31970174 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i1.97]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Emanuela Cimpeanu, MD, Doctor, Resident Physician, Department of Internal Medicine, Richmond University Medical Center, 355 Bard Ave, Staten Island, NY 10310, United States. emma_ver@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
Share the Article
Cimpeanu E, Ahmed J, Zafar W, DeMarinis A, Bardarov SS, Salman S, Bloomfield D. Pembrolizumab - emerging treatment of pulmonary sarcomatoid carcinoma: A case report. World J Clin Cases 2020; 8(1): 97-102 [PMID: 31970174 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i1.97]
World J Clin Cases. Jan 6, 2020; 8(1): 97-102 Published online Jan 6, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i1.97
Pembrolizumab - emerging treatment of pulmonary sarcomatoid carcinoma: A case report
Emanuela Cimpeanu, Jibran Ahmed, Wahib Zafar, Adreana DeMarinis, Svetoslav S Bardarov, Shamim Salman, Dennis Bloomfield
Emanuela Cimpeanu, Adreana DeMarinis, Dennis Bloomfield, Department of Internal Medicine, Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island, NY 10310, United States
Jibran Ahmed, Wahib Zafar, Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, NY 10595, United States
Svetoslav S Bardarov, Department of Pathology, Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island, NY 10310, United States
Shamim Salman, Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island, NY 10310, United States
Dennis Bloomfield, Department of Clinical Research, Richmond University Medical Center, Staten Island, NY 10310, United States
Author contributions: Cimpeanu E cared for the patient, conceived and designed the case report and wrote most of the manuscript; Jibran A and Zafar W cared for the patient, conceived and designed the case report and wrote part of the manuscript; DeMarinis A cared for the patient and wrote part of the manuscript; Bardarov SS provided the pathology data as well as the histology images and their description and also revised the manuscript; Salman S cared for the patient, conceived and designed the case report and made critical revisions to the manuscript; Bloomfield D conceived and designed the case report and made multiple critical revisions to the manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Consent to publish was obtained from the patient in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Corresponding author: Emanuela Cimpeanu, MD, Doctor, Resident Physician, Department of Internal Medicine, Richmond University Medical Center, 355 Bard Ave, Staten Island, NY 10310, United States. emma_ver@yahoo.com
Received: September 11, 2019 Peer-review started: September 11, 2019 First decision: October 24, 2019 Revised: November 5, 2019 Accepted: November 14, 2019 Article in press: November 14, 2019 Published online: January 6, 2020 Processing time: 117 Days and 22.2 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Few studies have addressed the efficacy of pembrolizumab in pulmonary sarcomatoid carcinoma (PSC), a rare, previously rapidly fatal subtype of non-small-cell lung cancer.
CASE SUMMARY
We report the case of a 69-year-old man presented with respiratory distress caused by a large left upper lung lobe mass diagnosed as PSC with programmed death-ligand 1 expressed on more than 50 percent of tumor cells. The patient was started on pembrolizumab and, after 5 cycles, there was a more than 80 percent decrease in the size of the tumor mass. Further decrease was seen at the end of 10 cycles. The patient has been tolerating pembrolizumab well, with no limiting side-effects. Fourteen months after first coming into the hospital, he remains asymptomatic.
CONCLUSION
Pembrolizumab appears as a viable emerging treatment for PSC.
Core tip: Pulmonary sarcomatoid carcinoma (PSC) is classified as a rare, aggressive subtype of non-small-cell lung cancer. In recent years, pembrolizumab, a humanized monoclonal IgG-kappa isotype antibody against the programmed death-1 receptor, has become the first-line treatment for NSCLE with programmed death-ligand-1 (PD-L1) expression on at least 50% of tumor cells. We report the case of an elderly man diagnosed with invasive PSC with PD-L1 greater than 50%. The patient experienced a highly positive response to pembrolizumab. The recommendation to treat PSC with pembrolizumab is supported by the small number of published papers available in the English literature.
