Immune-related liver injury is a poor prognostic factor in patients with non-small cell lung cancer treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

It remains unclear whether severe liver immune-related adverse events (liver-irAEs) can affect the prognosis in non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patients. Of the 365 NSCLC patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), 19 suffered from severe liver-irAEs (grade ≥3). The median time-to-onset of liver-irAEs was 53 days post-injection of the first ICI. The progression-free survival and overall survival of the liver-irAEs group (median 69 and 262 days, respectively) were significantly worse than the non-liver-irAEs group (128 and 722 days; P = 0.010 and P = 0.007; respectively). In conclusion, liver-irAEs were associated with poor prognosis in NSCLC patients.