WEDNESDAY, March 8 (HealthDay News) -- Isotretinoin therapy may help quell severe acne flare-ups in cancer patients receiving cetuximab, which can cause severe dermatosis, according to a case study presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology in San Francisco.
Emma Topham, M.B.B.Ch., of Royal Marsden Hospital in London, and colleagues describe the use of isotretinoin to treat a cetuximab acneiform eruption. Cetuximab was approved in 2004 to treat human epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-expressing metastatic colorectal carcinoma.
A 42-year-old man with metastatic rectal carcinoma receiving capecitabine, irinotecan and cetuximab was referred with severe acneiform dermatosis on face, scalp and back, that progressed despite some antibiotics. He was started on erythromycin, and cetuximab was stopped three months pending restaging.
The acneiform eruption started to abate within one week on low-dose isotretinoin. The patient tolerated chemotherapy resumption when the isotretinoin dose was increased to 40 milligrams daily and erythromycin to 500 milligrams twice-daily.
"The patient tolerated treatment with isotretinoin well and continued on it until the end of his chemotherapy," the authors write.
Abstract (page 24; P118)
