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Review
. 2021 Nov 2:12:123-131.
doi: 10.2147/LCTT.S305466. eCollection 2021.

Immunotherapy for Stage III NSCLC: Durvalumab and Beyond

Orla Fitzpatrick  1 , Jarushka Naidoo  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Immunotherapy for Stage III NSCLC: Durvalumab and Beyond

Orla Fitzpatrick et al. Lung Cancer (Auckl). .

Abstract

Immunocheckpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have altered the treatment landscape of a wide range of malignancies, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This class of agents inhibits the interaction between PD1 and PDL1, and was shown to be efficacious in the landmark PACIFIC trial with 1 year of maintenance durvalumab (anti-PDL1 antibody). This trial demonstrated that its use as a consolidation treatment given after definitive chemoradiotherapy improved progression free survival and overall survival compared to standard-of-care treatment. In this review, we discuss both clinical trial and real-world data that have been published since PACIFIC that support the use of durvalumab for stage III unresectable NSCLC. In addition, we highlight specific populations that may require special considerations for the use of durvalumab in this setting, such as oncogene-addicted NSCLC, the toxicity of immunotherapy, and future directions in ICI research in stage III NSCLC.

Keywords: durvalumab; immunotherapy; lung cancer.

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Conflict of interest statement

Dr Jarushka Naidoo reports grants and personal fees from AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck, Roche/Genentech, Takeda, Pfizer, and Daiichi Sankyo during the conduct of the study. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.

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