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

Table 1 Immune checkpoint inhibitors in first-line treatment in advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients

Study	Phase	n	RR (%)	PFS (months)	OS (months)	AEs ≥ grade 3 (%)
KEYNOTE 024 [15] Pembrolizumab vs. CT	III	305 PD-L1 ≥ 50%^a	44.8 vs. 27.8 P < 0.001	10.3 vs. 6.0 HR, 0.50; P < 0.001	HR, 0.60; P = 0.005 1-year OS: 70% vs. 54%	26.6 vs. 53.3
CheckMate 026 [31] Nivolumab vs. CT	III	423 PD-L1 ≥ 5%^b	26.1 vs. 33.5	4.2 vs. 5.9 HR, 1.15; P = 0.251	HR, 1.02 14.4 vs. 13.2 months	17.6 vs. 50.6
KEYNOTE 021 [39] Pembrolizumab + CT vs. CT	II	123	55 vs. 29 P = 0.0016	13.0 vs. 8.9 HR, 0.53; P = 0.0102	HR, 0.90; P = 0.39	39 vs. 26
CheckMate 012 [42] Nivolumab + Ipilimumab/12 weeks until disease progression or toxicity Nivolumab + Ipilimumab/6 weeks until disease progression or toxicity	I	38 40	47 38	8.1 3.9	Not calculated	37 33

CT chemotherapy, RR response rate, PFS progression-free survival, OS overall survival, AEs adverse events
^aExpression in ≥ 50% of tumor cells, regardless of the staining intensity with the 22C3 clone
^bTumor cell membrane staining any intensity > 1% with the 28-8 clone Epitomics

ISSN: 1741-7015