Treatment of Unresectable Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma with Cemiplimab in a Patient on Dialysis

Program death-1 inhibitors, a class of immune-checkpoint inhibitors, are now the standard of care in a variety of cancer settings, including cutaneous malignancies, such as melanomas, Merkel cell, and cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas (cSCCs). The clinical trials that led to the approval of the programmed death-1 inhibitor cemiplimab-rwlc (Libtayo^®) for use in advanced cSCC excluded patients with autoimmune disease and those that required systemic immunosuppressive treatments, or had undergone solid-organ transplantation. Also, to be eligible, patients had to have adequate organ function. Here, we present the first report of a patient that has been successfully treated with cemiplimab for locally advanced cSCC while simultaneously on dialysis for treatment of renal failure following renal transplant.