Dual Immunotherapy in Advanced Non-small Cell Lung Cancer: the Progress and Clinical Application

Abstract

Programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitors and PD-1 inhibitors plus chemotherapy combination regimens have been widely used in the first-line treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC), but patients with low PD-L1 expression have limited objective response and survival benefits. Existing treatment regimens are still difficult to fully meet the clinical needs of patients in the real world. Therefore, researchers are still exploring novel superactive treatment options to further improve the efficacy and survival prognosis of different sub-groups in NSCLC. Dual immunotherapy [such as the combination of PD-1 and cytotoxic T lymphocyte associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) inhibitors] has shown considerable long-term survival benefits in a variety of tumors and has also shown broad clinical prospects in NSCLC. In addition to exploring different emerging combination options, how to accurately identify the optimal-benefit groups through predictive biomarkers and how to effectively manage the safety of combination immunotherapy through multidisciplinary collaboration are also the focus of dual immunotherapy. This article reviews the mechanism of action, research progress, predictive biomarkers and future exploration directions of dual immunotherapy.


DOI: 10.3779/j.issn.1009-3419.2021.102.48