Trial reportJournal for immunotherapy of cancer2025
Perioperative pembrolizumab in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): conventional and distribution-based immune profiling of the tumor microenvironment and peripheral circulation.
Trial report in Journal for immunotherapy of cancer, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT02818920 (Pembrolizumab Prior to Surgery for Stage 1B, 2 or 3A Non-small Cell Lung Cancer), which is not on this map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Pembrolizumab Prior to Surgery for Stage 1B, 2 or 3A Non-small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC): A Phase II Study
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Tumor-infiltrating plasma cell profiling after PD-1 blockade reveals tumor-specific antibodies.Cancer cell · 2026Article
- The Central Role of m6A as Epigenetic Regulator in Metabolic Disorders of Therapeutic Potential and Clinical Implications.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeA recently published phase 2 neoadjuvant trial in patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (NCT02818920) evaluated the potential efficacy of pembrolizumab administration in the absence of chemotherapy. This communication reports on conventional and distribution-based immune profiling efforts in efforts to identify novel biomarkers predictive of benefit.
methodsPatients with stage 1B-3A NSCLC received two cycles of pembrolizumab (P), followed by surgical resection of the remaining tumors (NCT02818920). Banked peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were analyzed at baseline and following the second dose of P. Resected tumors were disaggregated, and cells were viably cryopreserved. Based on pathologic examination of the tumors, patients were categorized as major pathologic responders (MPR; ≤10% viable tumor present), or non-MPR (>10% viable tumor present). High-parameter immune phenotyping by flow cytometry was performed on all available tumor and PBMC specimens, and results were expressed using both conventional phenotypic frequency analyses as well as a novel distribution-based biomarker identification strategy aimed at discovery of patterns associated with MPR.
resultsConventional, frequency-based flow cytometric immune phenotyping of participant tumor microenvironments and PBMC revealed several MPR-associated trends, only a few of which reached statistical significance. The distribution-based biomarker identification strategy greatly enhanced the discovery of statistically significant cell types and patterns of change associated with MPR.
conclusionsThis novel, distribution-based analytic framework identified MPR-associated immune cell subsets in baseline PBMC that were not evident using conventional frequency-based immune profiling. Profiling the microenvironment of MPR-associated tumors revealed statistically significant distributional differences among highly expressed cellular markers on CD8
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