The introduction of monoclonal antibodies (AM) in the treatment of cancer has resulted in increased patient survival. However, so far insufficient attention has been paid to the infectious complications of such therapy.

P.I. Rafailidis et al. (Greece), a systematic review of randomized controlled trials was carried out, in which the incidence of infectious complications was compared to treatment of cancer with MA in combination with standard chemotherapy / radiotherapy and regimens that did not did not include AM. The work included the results of 20 studies, 10 of which included hematology oncology patients, 10 - with malignant tumors.

In 6 studies, a study of treatment with rituximab in combination with cyclophosphamide, oxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone was compared to a similar combination of drugs without the addition of rituximab in the treatment of non-Hodgkin's B-cell lymphoma. In 5 of 6 studies, there was no significant increase in the incidence of infectious complications when rituximab was added to the standard treatment regimen. At the same time, in one study, which included HIV-infected patients, an increase in the incidence of opportunistic infections and an infectious disease mortality rate of 12% was observed when using treatment regimens including rituximab.

In 5 studies, a combination of trastuzumab in combination with standard chemotherapy vs was compared only to standard chemotherapy or monotherapy trastuzumab with the treatment observation tactics of patients with breast cancer. Results showed that adding trastuzumab to various chemotherapy regimens resulted in a slight increase in the incidence of serious and very serious infections, while the use of bevacizumab in a similar situation was accompanied by a slight increase the incidence of grade III / IV infections (i.e. severe and very serious). In addition, in one study, a relative increase in the incidence of severe and very severe infections was noted when cetuximab was added to standard chemotherapy.

Thus, the addition of monoclonal antibodies to standard chemotherapy in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, with the exception of people infected with HIV, did not increase the incidence of infectious complications. In breast cancer patients, the use of a number of monoclonal antibodies was accompanied by a slight increase in the incidence of infectious complications, but no significant difference in the frequency of death from infectious pathologies were not detected.