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Review
. 2017 Mar 13;15(1):55.
doi: 10.1186/s12916-017-0819-3.

Successes and failures: what did we learn from recent first-line treatment immunotherapy trials in non-small cell lung cancer?

Jordi Remon  1   2 , Benjamin Besse  1   3 , Jean-Charles Soria  4
Affiliations
Review

Successes and failures: what did we learn from recent first-line treatment immunotherapy trials in non-small cell lung cancer?

Jordi Remon et al. BMC Med. .

Erratum in

Abstract

The immune checkpoint inhibitors have significantly modified the therapeutic landscape of advanced non-small cell lung cancer in second-line and, more recently, first-line settings. Because of the superior outcome with pembrolizumab as an upfront strategy, PD-L1 status should now be considered a new reflex biomarker for guiding first-line treatment in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Improved responses have also been reported with the combination of immune checkpoint inhibitors and chemotherapy as the first-line treatment; however, this strategy has not yet been validated by phase III trial data and its interplay with PD-L1 status still requires clarification.In this manuscript we review the contradictory results of recent phase III trials with immune checkpoint inhibitors in the first-line setting, the potential reasons for discrepancies, and some of the remaining open questions related to the positioning of immune checkpoint inhibitors in the first-line setting of non-small cell lung cancer.

Keywords: First-line; Immunotherapy; Nivolumab; Non-small cell lung cancer; PD-1; PD-L1; Pembrolizumab.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Upcoming randomized immunotherapy trials in first-line NSCLC and projected read-out timelines
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