{"title":"Challenges and opportunities in the immunotherapy era: balancing expectations with hope in small-cell lung cancer.","authors":"Raza Khan, Niamh Coleman","doi":"10.1177/17588359241249627","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a biologically aggressive subtype of lung cancer, a lethal disease characterized by rapid tumor growth, early relapse, a strong tendency for early widespread metastasis, and high genomic instability, making it a formidable foe in modern oncology practice. While the management of non-SCLC has been revolutionized in the era of immunotherapy, progress in SCLC has been more muted. Recent randomized phase III clinical trials have combined programmed death ligand-1 inhibitors to a chemotherapy backbone and demonstrated improved survival; however, the absolute benefit observed is short months. There is an undeniable urgent need for better responses, better agents, novel therapeutic approaches, and more rational, biomarker-driven clinical trials in SCLC. In this review, we discuss the rationale and current understanding of the biology of SCLC in the modern era of immunotherapy, discuss recent advances in front-line immunotherapeutic approaches that have changed clinical practice globally, provide an overview of some of the challenges and limitations that have staggered immune checkpoint blockade in SCLC, and explore some of the novel immunotherapeutic approaches currently being investigated.</p>","PeriodicalId":23053,"journal":{"name":"Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11102705/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17588359241249627","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ONCOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a biologically aggressive subtype of lung cancer, a lethal disease characterized by rapid tumor growth, early relapse, a strong tendency for early widespread metastasis, and high genomic instability, making it a formidable foe in modern oncology practice. While the management of non-SCLC has been revolutionized in the era of immunotherapy, progress in SCLC has been more muted. Recent randomized phase III clinical trials have combined programmed death ligand-1 inhibitors to a chemotherapy backbone and demonstrated improved survival; however, the absolute benefit observed is short months. There is an undeniable urgent need for better responses, better agents, novel therapeutic approaches, and more rational, biomarker-driven clinical trials in SCLC. In this review, we discuss the rationale and current understanding of the biology of SCLC in the modern era of immunotherapy, discuss recent advances in front-line immunotherapeutic approaches that have changed clinical practice globally, provide an overview of some of the challenges and limitations that have staggered immune checkpoint blockade in SCLC, and explore some of the novel immunotherapeutic approaches currently being investigated.
期刊介绍:
Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology is an open access, peer-reviewed journal delivering the highest quality articles, reviews, and scholarly comment on pioneering efforts and innovative studies in the medical treatment of cancer. The journal has a strong clinical and pharmacological focus and is aimed at clinicians and researchers in medical oncology, providing a forum in print and online for publishing the highest quality articles in this area. This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).