Objective: Our work aimed to assess, in real conditions, the association between cetuximab's cutaneous adverse drug reactions and the overall survival at 6 months for metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) and head-neck cancer.
Method: We conducted a retrospective observational study. The 6-month survival was defined as the patient's status evaluated six months after the first administration of cetuximab. Multivariate survival analysis was performed by the Cox model. RESULTS. Between January 2004 to June 2010, 167 patients have been included (97 patients with a mCRC and 70 patients with a head-neck cancer). The occurrence of at least one cutaneous adverse effect is associated with a significantly reduced risk of mortality at 6 months (total population, RR=0.34 [0.20-0.58], p<0.001; mCRC population, RR=0.45 [0.21-0.99], p=0.047; head-neck cancer population, RR=0.25 [0.13-0.50], p<0.001). CONCLUSION. These results show, for the first time in real conditions, the possible link between cutaneous adverse drugs reactions and 6-month survival.
© 2014 Société Française de Pharmacologie et de Thérapeutique.