The efficacy and safety of immune checkpoint inhibitors in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: We aim to assess the efficacy and safety profiles of immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer using a meta-analysis. Methods: We extracted and examined data from phase I, II and III clinical trials from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library, which included patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who were treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors. We performed a meta-analysis to investigate several indexes of efficacy and safety, including the objective response rate, 1-year overall survival (OS) rate, prostate-specific antigen response rate, and adverse event rate of immune checkpoint inhibitors. The material data were calculated and pooled using The R Project for Statistical Computing and STATA 12.0 software. Results: We identified 12 clinical trials in our study. We assessed the pooled frequencies of all-grade AEs and grade ≥ 3 AEs first and showed 0.82 (95% CI: 0.74-0.91, I2= 94%, P