Abstract
Immunotherapy is already an integral part of lung cancer treatment. The results of a number of studies with checkpoint inhibitors have shown an improvement in overall survival first in higher treatment lines in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), results are now available in combination with chemotherapy in first-line treatment regardless of PD-L1 (programmed cell death protein ligand) expression, including small cell lung cancer (SCLC).
Atezolizumab is approved by the European Medicines Agency as monotherapy for the second-line therapy of advanced NSCLC, in combination with bevacizumab, paclitaxel and carboplatin for the first-line treatment of metastatic non-squamous NSCLC, including patients with evidence of EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) mutation or ALK rearrangement after failure of target therapy, in combination with nab-paclitaxel and carboplatin in the first line of non-squamous NSCLC without evidence of EGFR mutation or ALK gene rearrangement, and in combination with etoposide and carboplatin as the first checkpoint inhibitor for extensive first-line SCLC treatment.