Immunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Lung cancer (LC) is one of the most common malignancies, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) represents almost 85% of diagnosed cases of LC. For patients with resectable early-stage NSCLC, surgery is the best therapeutic option when possible, and adjuvant chemotherapy provides an additional benefit. At present, treatment options for patients with advanced disease include: chemotherapy, targeted therapies, and immunotherapy; In specific cases, local treatment with radiotherapy or surgery is recommended to palliate the symptoms. To stipulate the treatment, it is essential to know besides the histological characteristics, the molecular and immunological characteristics of the tumor, evaluating the genomic changes of the tumor and the PD-L1 expression. Immunotherapy alone and combined with chemotherapy has achieved superior benefits than former standard treatments. In this non-systematic review, the outcomes of the latest trials regarding the use of immunotherapy in different contexts are discussed. Parallely, finding predictive response biomarkers and/or criteria for an early response assessment is challenging.