Treatment effect and safety profile of salvage chemotherapy following immune checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer

Mari Tone; Takehiro Izumo; Nobuyasu Awano; Naoyuki Kuse; Minoru Inomata; Tatsunori Jo; Hanako Yoshimura; Shingo Miyamoto; Hideo Kunitoh

doi:10.2217/lmt-2019-0001

Treatment effect and safety profile of salvage chemotherapy following immune checkpoint inhibitors in lung cancer

Lung Cancer Manag. 2019 May 9;4(6):LMT12. doi: 10.2217/lmt-2019-0001. eCollection 2019 Oct.

Authors

Mari Tone^{1

1}, Takehiro Izumo^{1

1}, Nobuyasu Awano^{1

1}, Naoyuki Kuse^{1

1}, Minoru Inomata^{1

1}, Tatsunori Jo^{1

1}, Hanako Yoshimura^{1

1}, Shingo Miyamoto^{2

2}, Hideo Kunitoh^{2

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Respiratory Medicine, Japanese Red Cross Medical Center, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.
² Department of Medical Oncology, Japanese Red Cross Medical Center, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

Abstract

Aim: To assess the relationship of treatment effects between immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) and salvage chemotherapy, with the safety profile of salvage chemotherapy.

Patients & methods: 18 patients with advanced NSCLC treated using salvage chemotherapy following ICI treatment were retrospectively included. We assessed the overall response rate to and adverse events of salvage chemotherapy.

Results: The overall response rate to salvage chemotherapy was 33.3% and that of ICI responders was significantly higher than that of ICI nonresponders (66.7 vs 16.7%, respectively, p = 0.03). The incidence rate of adverse events to salvage chemotherapy was 55.6%.

Conclusion: The efficacy of salvage chemotherapy was similar to that preceding ICI. Moreover, the safety of salvage chemotherapy was good.

Keywords: NSCLC; immune checkpoint inhibitor; salvage chemotherapy.