Histiocytic Sarcoma Treated with Pembrolizumab: A Case Report and Literature Review

Abstract

Histiocytic sarcoma (HS) is a rare hematologic malignancy that has historically been treated with lymphoma-based regimens with a median survival of 6 months. We describe a case of a 51-year-old woman who presented with acute back pain and cord compression. She was diagnosed with HS with diffuse skeletal lesions and high expression of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1). She was subsequently treated with chemotherapy plus off-label use of pembrolizumab followed by allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Ultimately, the patient died in the setting of progression of disease 17 months after her stem cell transplantation and 26 months after her diagnosis. This article also presents a literature review of cases of HS treated with programmed death ligand inhibition.

Keywords

• case report
• histiocytic sarcoma
• pd-l1 inhibitors