Bringing lung cancer patients to a cure, blockbuster immune combination therapy significantly prolongs cancer-free survival

Today, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) announced that its blockbuster immune checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo (nivolumab), in combination with chemotherapy, was used before surgery in patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to significantly prolong cancer-free survival time

Neoadjuvant therapy (neoadjuvant therapy) refers to the treatment performed before the tumor is surgically removed.

At present, multiple immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapies have been used in phase 3 clinical trials as neoadjuvant therapy in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer

▲Part of the non-metastatic NSCLC neoadjuvant therapy in Phase 3 clinical development (Information source: Reference [3], Drawing by WuXi AppTec Content Team)

The results presented at the AACR conference in April this year showed that when Bristol-Myers Squibb's Opdivo was used in combination with chemotherapy, when treating early-stage non-small cell lung cancer before surgery, the patient's pathological complete response rate (meaning that in the surgically removed tissue or tissue biopsy samples without any signs of cancer) increased to 24%, compared with 2.

"In patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer, although the goal of surgery is to cure the lung cancer, 30-55% of patients will relapse and eventually die, and they urgently need more treatment options

In addition to neoadjuvant therapy, in the past 12 months, targeted therapy and immunotherapy have also made breakthroughs in the field of postoperative adjuvant therapy

In October this year, Roche's blockbuster PD-L1 inhibitor Tecentriq (atezolizumab) was also approved by the US FDA for the treatment of patients with stage II-IIIA PD-L1-expressing non-small cell lung cancer after surgery and platinum-containing chemotherapy.

Lung cancer, a centuries-old cancer type, was at a loss, and in the last decades of the world, the 5-year survival rate for patients with advanced lung cancer barely improved

▲The 5-year survival rate for lung cancer has barely changed for a long time (white: 1-year survival rate for men; black: 1-year survival rate for women; dark grey: 5-year survival rate for men; light grey: 5-year survival rate for women; image source : Reference [5])

However, over the past 20 years, advances in science have brought about an era of "a hundred flowers blooming" in lung cancer treatment

The advent of immunotherapy has significantly improved the survival rate of patients with non-small cell lung cancer

▲The progress of therapy for the treatment of metastatic NSCLC and resectable NSCLC (Image source: Reference [3])

Following success in the treatment of metastatic lung cancer, the use of immunotherapy to treat patients with early-stage lung cancer is becoming an important trend in lung cancer treatment

References:

[1] Neoadjuvant Opdivo (nivolumab) Plus Chemotherapy Significantly Improves Event-Free Survival in Patients with Resectable Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in Phase 3 CheckMate -816 Trial.

[2] Adjuvant immunotherapy for NSCLC — does treating earlier mean treating better? Retrieved November 8, 2021, from https:// Chaft et al.

[4] AACR: Bristol Myers' Opdivo one-ups Merck's Keytruda with presurgery lung cancer win.

[5] Stephen G.