Tuberculosis Can Emerge After Cancer Immunotherapy

At least a handful of patients have developed active TB after receiving cancer treatment designed to boost the immune system’s antitumor response.

Written byAshley Yeager

| 4 min read

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immunotherapy treatment may cause latent infections of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to flare up in cancer patients

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ABOVE: Certain types of immunotherapy treatment may cause latent infections of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to flare up in cancer patients, a new study warns.
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In December 2012, an 80-year-old man in Florida went to his doctor to have a bulge on his eyelid examined. Tests showed that the bump was a rare form of skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma. Despite treatment, the man’s cancer spread, first to lymph nodes under his jaw, then to lymph nodes in his abdomen. So in June 2015, he enrolled in a clinical trial for Merck’s pembrolizumab (Keytruda), a checkpoint inhibitor drug that blocks programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) to help the immune system more effectively target and kill tumor cells.

Six months into receiving the experimental treatment, the man developed an odd-looking nodule in his lung that didn’t resemble any of his other tumors. Doctors decided to biopsy it. To their ...

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Meet the Author

Ashley Yeager
Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.
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