Immunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer treatment

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the leading cause of cancer related mortality worldwide. Many patients present with metastatic disease and traditional CT treatment fails to provide long-term benefit for most patients. Patients with driver mutations demonstrate substantially better response rate and progression-free survival when the appropriate targeted agents are used, but only approximately 25%-30% of patients with NSCLC have actionable mutations. Novel treatment options are clearly needed for patients with lung cancer. Immuno-oncology recently has been identified as effective second line therapy of NCSLC. Almost all of this progress has been due to the development of PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors. In this review, we explore the data currently available for these agents.