Lung cancer : journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer
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This network meta-analysis (NMA), based on 12 phase-III studies with 9,236 metastatic NSCLC patients, aims to compare the efficacy of treatments including at least one immune-checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) with or without chemotherapy, as frontline therapy for advanced NSCLC patients. The NMA includes direct randomized evidence on treatments of interest along with indirect evidence from randomized studies with chemotherapy as the common comparator. Studies were identified by searching PubMed, and the abstracts of most recent main oncology congresses. ⋯ Of note, ABC is evaluated only for OS in non-squamous patients while the pembrolizumab-monotherapy PFS benefit and the atezolizumab/chemotherapy OS benefit are probably under-estimated since most of the data stems from non-significant interim analyses of ongoing studies [KN042;IM131/132/150]. In conclusion, the addition of chemotherapy to ICIs enhanced their treatment efficacy as first-line treatment for advanced NSCLC patients. The combination of chemotherapy with either pembrolizumab or atezolizumab show consistently higher efficacy than chemotherapy-alone or any other ICI-combination or monotherapy, particularly in non-squamous patients.