Clinical characteristics, treatment outcomes, and prognosis in patients with MKIs-associated hand-foot skin reaction: a retrospective study

BackgroundMultikinase inhibitors (MKIs) treatment has been proven as a powerful strategy in cancer therapy. However, it is greatly hampered by its common adverse effect known as hand-foot skin reaction (HFSR), especially in patients with moderate-to-severe HFSR.ObjectiveTo investigate the clinical characteristics, histopathological features, treatment response, and bio-indicators of HFSR.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 102 patients with moderate-to-severe HFSR resulting from MKIs therapy.ResultsThe median time to development of moderate-to-severe HFSR was 18 days, which would be significantly affected by the type of MKIs and the history of HFSR. Notably, we found that HFSR was classified into three consecutive stages: erythematous lesion, yellow hyperkeratotic lesion with surrounding erythema, and hyperkeratotic lesion. Inflammation was observed in the first two stages of HFSR, but disappeared in the third stage; in contrast, the hyperkeratosis gradually became thicker from stage one to stage three. Moreover, topical medications were demonstrated as an effective therapy for HFSR, among which, the topical steroids and urea ointment treatment response rate was 37.14%, the Shouzu Ning Decoction (SND) treatment response rate was 65%, and the SND in combination with urea ointment treatment response rate was 75%, meanwhile, systemic therapies did not improve the therapeutic efficacy of topical medications alone. In addition, the serum levels of HMGB1 were found to be a potential indicator for tracking the healing process as well as predicting the prognosis of HFSR.ConclusionThis study revealed the potential factors affecting the development of HFSR, evaluated the therapeutic response towards different strategies for treating HFSR, and identified a potential prognostic indicator of HFSR.