Drug-Induced Interstitial Lung Disease after Anthracycline-Combined Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer: A Case Report and Literature Review

Abstract

Drug-induced interstitial lung disease (DILD) has been occasionally reported with various causative drugs. In the context of breast cancer, anthracycline infrequently causes pulmonary adverse events. We report a 67-year-old woman with cT2N0M0 triple-negative breast cancer who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy with anthracycline-combined chemotherapy with pegfilgrastim. She developed fever, cough, and shortness of breath after 21 days of the scheduled fourth cycle of anthracycline. Computed tomography revealed drug-induced interstitial pneumonia. Prednisolone (1 mg/kg) was administrated and gradually decreased. Thereby, interstitial pneumonia quickly improved. Partial resection of the left breast and sentinel lymph node biopsy were performed, and we diagnosed ypT1bN0. The patient received 4 cycles of taxane and hypofractional radiotherapy and survived without any recurrences over the following 37 months. We report a rare case of DILD due to anthracycline-combined chemotherapy. Twenty-five cases of DILD with breast cancer after administration of anthracycline have been reported so far. However, 14 cases occurred during taxane. Most of the cases had remission by steroid treatment. The patients with respiratory symptoms during chemotherapy should be suspicious of not only infection but also DILD.

Keywords

• drug-induced interstitial lung disease
• interstitial pneumonia
• breast cancer
• anthracycline
• prednisolone