Consolidative immunotherapy of locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer

The standard of care management of locoregionally advanced, inoperable, stage-III non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the concurrent radiochemotherapy. Although the concurrent treatment increases the chance of five year survival with about 50% rate compared to sequential approach (10.6% versus 15.1%), the prognosis is still unfavourable. Impressive improvement in the treatment of metastatic NSCLC can be seen with the new immunotherapy era. Therefore the efficacy of the immuncheckpoint inhibitors are being investigated in earlier, potentially curable stages of the disease. Based on the results of the PACIFIC trial, high level of evidence supports the impact of consolidative immunotherapy on overall survival following concurrent radiochemotherapy. Several ongoing clinical trials focus on the efficacy of immunotherapies in such indication.