ArticleTherapeutic advances in medical oncology2025
Impact of delayed addition of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors to chemotherapy on outcomes in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer.
Article in Therapeutic advances in medical oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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1 citing paper in PubMed.
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7 authors.
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Abstract
Background: Immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy is the first-line treatment for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC). However, the effect of delayed initiation of immunotherapy on its efficacy remains unclear. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the impact of the delayed addition of programmed death receptor 1/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) inhibitors on treatment outcomes in patients with ES-SCLC. Design: This retrospective cohort study used propensity score matching (PSM) to balance baseline characteristics. Methods: This study included 416 patients with ES-SCLC who received first-line immunotherapy between January 2020 and December 2022. Patients were categorized into two groups: delayed-immunotherapy (IO) (PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors initiated during the 2nd or 3rd chemotherapy cycle) and early-IO (immunotherapy initiated during the first cycle). A 1:1 PSM was performed to balance baseline characteristics. The primary endpoints were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), which were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared using log-rank tests. Results: Owing to the exclusion of PD-L1/PD-1 inhibitors from medical insurance, financial constraints, and poor physical condition of some patients, 72 patients were included in the delayed-IO group (second cycle: 41; third cycle: 31), while 344 were in the early-IO group. Before PSM, median OS and PFS in the delayed-IO group were 24.00 and 8.75 months, compared to 18.59 and 7.57 months in the early-IO group, with no significant differences (OS: HR 0.72, Conclusion: In patients with ES-SCLC, delayed administration of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors during the second to fourth chemotherapy cycles improves survival outcomes compared to concurrent administration during the first cycle, with a similar safety profile. These results suggest that, in specific patient populations, delayed immunotherapy may improve survival outcomes by optimizing patient condition or treatment response.
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