A Multimodality Score Strategy for Assessing the Risk of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors Related Cardiotoxicity

This study aimed to find the association between four common clinical biomarkers and subsequent ICICT, developing a risk scoring strategy to assess the ICICT risk. Three terminals for ICICT were : Terminal 1, cancer therapy-related cardiomyopathies; Terminal 2, myocarditis or heart failure; and Terminal 3, myocarditis, heart failure, myocardial infarction, cerebral infarction, atrial fibrillation, or death. The thresholds were : N-terminal-pro-B-type-natriuretic-peptide ≥ 125 pg/mL, cardiac troponin T ≥ 6 ng/L, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein ≥ 3 mg/L, and coronary artery calcium score > 10 U. Each of the four abnormal biomarkers received 1 point. The links between biomarkers, score stage, and ICICT were analyzed. 375 patients with a mean follow-up of 1.91 years were included. All four biomarkers measured before immunotherapy were associated with a higher risk of developing ICICT. These scores were also associated with ICICT risk. The highest risk was the very high stage (score = 4) has 7.29, 8.83, and 7.02 folder higher risk compared to low risk group for Terminal 1-3, respectively. The cumulation of incidences also showed that the higher stages of score had an earlier onset and higher incidence of ICICT. 4 biomarkers and the scoring strategy enables clinicians to assess risk easily.