Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 May;10(Suppl 13):S1547-S1555.
doi: 10.21037/jtd.2018.01.82.

Oncogene-addicted non-small cell lung cancer and immunotherapy

Georgios Tsakonas  1   2 , Simon Ekman  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Oncogene-addicted non-small cell lung cancer and immunotherapy

Georgios Tsakonas et al. J Thorac Dis. 2018 May.

Abstract

A majority of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), especially adenocarcinomas, harbour at least one oncogenic driver mutation that can potentially be a target for therapy. The treatment of these oncogene-addicted tumors has dramatically changed the outcome of these patients, where tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) of mutated epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and rearranged anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) have paved the way for a new era of precision cancer medicine. Another paradigm shift in the treatment of NSCLC, as well as numerous other tumor types, has been the introduction of immunotherapy (IO) with immune checkpoint inhibitors targeting mainly programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) or its ligand PDL-L1, where studies have demonstrated an increased survival versus standard treatment with chemotherapy, both in the first- and second-line setting. However, the role of IO in oncogene-addicted NSCLC is still unclear where most clinical data come from subgroup analyses with low number of patients in larger randomized trials, and these data do not support the use of IO after TKI in this category of NSCLC patients. The purpose of this review is to summarize the existing evidence about the use of IO in oncogenic-addicted NSCLC and highlight the issues that should be addressed in the future in order to define the role of IO for these patients.

Keywords: Immunotherapy; anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK); checkpoint inhibitor; epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR); non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); oncogene-addicted; programmed cell death-1 (PD-1).

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

References

    1. Mok TS, Wu YL, Thongprasert S, et al. Gefitinib or carboplatin-paclitaxel in pulmonary adenocarcinoma. N Engl J Med 2009;361:947-57. 10.1056/NEJMoa0810699 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rosell R, Carcereny E, Gervais R, et al. Erlotinib versus standard chemotherapy as first-line treatment for European patients with advanced EGFR mutation-positive non-small-cell lung cancer (EURTAC): a multicentre, open-label, randomised phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol 2012;13:239-46. 10.1016/S1470-2045(11)70393-X - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sequist LV, Yang JC, Yamamoto N, et al. Phase III study of afatinib or cisplatin plus pemetrexed in patients with metastatic lung adenocarcinoma with EGFR mutations. J Clin Oncol 2013;31:3327-34. 10.1200/JCO.2012.44.2806 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wu YL, Zhou C, Hu CP, et al. Afatinib versus cisplatin plus gemcitabine for first-line treatment of Asian patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer harbouring EGFR mutations (LUX-Lung 6): an open-label, randomised phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol 2014;15:213-22. 10.1016/S1470-2045(13)70604-1 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zhou C, Wu YL, Chen G, et al. Erlotinib versus chemotherapy as first-line treatment for patients with advanced EGFR mutation-positive non-small-cell lung cancer (OPTIMAL, CTONG-0802): a multicentre, open-label, randomised, phase 3 study. Lancet Oncol 2011;12:735-42. 10.1016/S1470-2045(11)70184-X - DOI - PubMed