Pathological Response and Immune Biomarker Assessment in Non-Small-Cell Lung Carcinoma Receiving Neoadjuvant Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

Authors

Frank Rojas
Edwin Roger Parra
Ignacio Ivan Wistuba
Cara Haymaker
Luisa Maren Solis Soto

Publication Date

6-2-2022

Journal

Cancers

Abstract

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer incidence and mortality worldwide. Adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy have been used in the perioperative setting of non-small-cell carcinoma (NSCLC); however, the five-year survival rate only improves by about 5%. Neoadjuvant treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has become significant due to improved survival in advanced NSCLC patients treated with immunotherapy agents. The assessment of pathology response has been proposed as a surrogate indicator of the benefits of neaodjuvant therapy. An outline of recommendations has been published by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) for the evaluation of pathologic response (PR). However, recent studies indicate that evaluations of immune-related changes are distinct in surgical resected samples from patients treated with immunotherapy. Several clinical trials of neoadjuvant immunotherapy in resectable NSCLC have included the study of biomarkers that can predict the response of therapy and monitor the response to treatment. In this review, we provide relevant information on the current recommendations of the assessment of pathological responses in surgical resected NSCLC tumors treated with neoadjuvant immunotherapy, and we describe current and potential biomarkers to predict the benefits of neoadjuvant immunotherapy in patients with resectable NSCLC.

Keywords

major pathological response, neoadjuvant immunotherapy, biomarkers

DOI

10.3390/cancers14112775

PMID

35681755

PMCID

PMC9179283

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

6-2-2022

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes