Immunotherapy in small cell lung cancer: one step at a time: a narrative review.

ABSTRACT: Chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy has been the standard of care for many years for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Despite exceptionally high responses (up to 80%) with chemotherapy, the majority of patients relapse rapidly within weeks to months after treatment completion. Therefore, new and better treatment options are necessary. Recently, synergistic activity has been reported for the addition of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) to standard platinum-based chemotherapy in the therapeutic strategy of advanced SCLC. For the first time after several decades, a significant survival improvement was achieved for this population. However, the overwhelming majority of patients do not respond to ICI, or relapse rapidly. There is need for better knowledge about the biology,

SUBMITTER: Dumoulin DW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8264327 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature