Progress and perspectives of perioperative immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer

Yurong Peng; Zhuo Li; Yucheng Fu; Yue Pan; Yue Zeng; Junqi Liu; Chaoyue Xiao; Yingzhe Zhang; Yahui Su; Guoqing Li; Fang Wu

doi:10.3389/fonc.2023.1011810

Progress and perspectives of perioperative immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer

Front Oncol. 2023 Jan 25:13:1011810. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1011810. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yurong Peng¹, Zhuo Li², Yucheng Fu¹, Yue Pan¹, Yue Zeng¹, Junqi Liu¹, Chaoyue Xiao¹, Yingzhe Zhang¹, Yahui Su³, Guoqing Li³, Fang Wu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Oncology, the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
² The Ophthalmologic Center of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
³ XiangYa School of Public Health, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.

Abstract

Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death. Lung cancer mortality has decreased over the past decade, which is partly attributed to improved treatments. Curative surgery for patients with early-stage lung cancer is the standard of care, but not all surgical treatments have a good prognosis. Adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy are used to improve the prognosis of patients with resectable lung cancer. Immunotherapy, an epoch-defining treatment, has improved curative effects, prognosis, and tolerability compared with traditional and ordinary cytotoxic chemotherapy, providing new hope for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Immunotherapy-related clinical trials have reported encouraging clinical outcomes in their exploration of different types of perioperative immunotherapy, from neoadjuvant immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) monotherapy, neoadjuvant immune-combination therapy (chemoimmunotherapy, immunotherapy plus antiangiogenic therapy, immunotherapy plus radiotherapy, or concurrent chemoradiotherapy), adjuvant immunotherapy, and neoadjuvant combined adjuvant immunotherapy. Phase 3 studies such as IMpower 010 and CheckMate 816 reported survival benefits of perioperative immunotherapy for operable patients. This review summarizes up-to-date clinical studies and analyzes the efficiency and feasibility of different neoadjuvant therapies and biomarkers to identify optimal types of perioperative immunotherapy for NSCLC.

Keywords: NSCLC; adjuvant therapy; biomarkers; immunotherapy; lung cancer; neoadjuvant immune monotherapy; neoadjuvant therapies; perioperative period perioperative immunotherapy.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This study was funded by the following: 1) 2022.01–2024.12, The effects and mechanism investigation of stress status on efficacy and prognosis of immune checkpoint blockade therapy in non-small cell lung cancer, supported by the Beijing Xisike Clinical Oncology Research Foundation (Grant No. Y-HS202102-0130), PI; 2) 2021.01–2024.12, The novel mechanism underlying the resistance to immune checkpoint blockade therapy in non-small cell lung cancer: focusing on β2-AR signaling in CD8+T cell, supported by the Hunan Provincial Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (Grant No. 2021JJ20088), PI; and 3) 2020.01–2022.12, The role of β2-AR pathway on the CD8+T cells within tumor microenvironment in the effect of immune checkpoint inhibitors therapy of non-small cell lung cancer, supported by the Chinese Thoracic Oncology Group (CTONG)-ROCHE Lung Cancer Research Foundation, PI.