Follow-up Care for Patients Receiving Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

Abstract

The rapid advances in cancer immunotherapy using immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have led to significantly improved survival of patients. But at the same time, it also associates with multiple immune-related adverse events (irAEs). The irAEs can affect a wide range of organs, and induce nonspecific symptoms with delayed onset and prolonged duration that is easily neglected, which may lead to life-threatening disorders. Therefore, follow-up care for patients receiving ICIs for irAEs management has become an essential competency in cancer nursing. There are several guidelines about the management of irAEs, which focused on diagnosis, grading, and treatment. However, studies on relevant follow-up care are rare. Nurses play an important role in follow-up care, whose relevant knowledge and skills are indispensable. Combined with domestic and foreign guidelines and related studies, this paper reviewed the occurrence and characteristics of irAEs and highlighted the contents, timing, models, and effects of follow-up care for patients receiving ICIs, to provide a reference for clinical nursing practice and improve the safety of immunotherapy for patients.

Keywords

• follow-up
• immune checkpoint inhibitors
• immune-related adverse events