Lung cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer worldwide and a leading cause of death globally. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most frequent type of lung cancer. However, since nearly half of the cases are diagnosed in an advanced stage of the disease, the overall survival rate for these patients is very modest, amounting to less than 10% surviving for 5 years. In recent years, therapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) has been introduced. With our study, we aimed to determine the effectiveness and safety of ICI monotherapy in the second-line treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients treated at the Golnik Clinic within routine clinical practice.
We included 87 patients with advanced NSCLC, without driver target alterations in EGFR, ALK, and ROS1, who received ICI (pembrolizumab, atezolizumab, or nivolumab) as second-line treatment at the University Clinic Golnik from July 2015 to April 2022 within routine clinical practice. As part of the analysis, we evaluated the median overall survival (mOS), duration of treatment (DOT), and overall survival at one and two years. Univariate and multivariate analyses were also conducted to examine which prognostic and predictive patient characteristics are associated with treatment outcomes.
The included patients were older (median age 65 years). 62% (54/87) were male and 13% (11/87) of patients had a poorer performance status (PS ⡥ 2). Patients received atezolizumab 37% (32/87), nivolumab 33% (29/87), or pembrolizumab 30% (32/87). The median duration of treatment (mDOT) was 5.0 months (95% CI, 2.4-8.2), and the median overall survival (mOS) was 11.8 months (95% CI, 10.0-13.6). One-year survival of patients was 53%, and two-year survival was 23%. Adverse events of all grades were present in 91% (77/87) of patients, with severe (grades 3-4) events in 17% (15/87) of patients. There were no deaths attributed to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.
The effectiveness of ICI in our collective of patients is comparable to the outcomes in four registration studies where mOS ranged from 9.2 months to 12.2 months. The incidence of adverse events in our study falls within the range reported in clinical trials with a slightly higher occurrence compared to observational studies.
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