Cancer Treatment Response to Checkpoint Inhibitors Is Associated with Cytomegalovirus Infection

Faith Villanueva; Cai Yuan; Walter Drane; Long Dang; Thu-Cuc Nguyen

doi:10.7759/cureus.6670

Cancer Treatment Response to Checkpoint Inhibitors Is Associated with Cytomegalovirus Infection

Cureus. 2020 Jan 15;12(1):e6670. doi: 10.7759/cureus.6670.

Authors

Faith Villanueva¹, Cai Yuan², Walter Drane³, Long Dang⁴, Thu-Cuc Nguyen⁵

Affiliations

¹ Internal Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA.
² Oncology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA.
³ Radiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA.
⁴ Oncology, Ochsner Health System, Baton Rouge, USA.
⁵ Internal Medicine, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, USA.

Abstract

Programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) checkpoint inhibitors induce tumor response by activating the patient's own immune system to fight cancer. Tumors with high tumor mutational burden or those that express high levels of PD-1/PD-L1 are more responsive to PD1/PDL1 inhibitors. There is much interest in determining how to improve response to PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors. We report a case of a patient with metastatic bladder cancer who was primarily resistant to treatment with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors, then had a complete response after developing cytomegalovirus infection.

Keywords: cmv infection; immune therapy; malignancy; oncology; pd-1 inhibitor; urothelial carcinoma.

Publication types

Case Reports