Within a few years the introduction of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) fundamentally changed the treatment landscape of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and improved survival for a relevant proportion of patients. Immune monotherapies are highly efficient in cancers showing a PD-L1 overexpression ≥ 50% of tumor cells, all others with a lower level and independent from the PD-L1 expression can be treated with various treatment combinations. In a curative setting all PD-L1 positive patients (≥ 1%) who underwent chemoradiotherapy to reduce disease relapse and subsequently to improve survival should undergo an ICI maintenance treatment. Furthermore, positive results from phase III studies are also available for adjuvant treatment of patients with resectable NSCLC, whereby an EMA approval is currently pending. The treatment with ICIs has given rise to a new class of immune-mediated adverse side effects, which occur in approximately one third of the patients and range from easily substituted endocrinopathies to life-threatening organ toxicity. An anticipatory monitoring as well as interdisciplinary treatment are therefore the keys to avoiding progression of higher grade potentially fatal toxicities.
Keywords
- Adjuvant treatment
- Immune checkpoint inhibition
- Immune consolidation
- Immune-mediated side effects
- Monitoring
