What future opportunities may immuno-oncology provide for improving the treatment of patients with lung cancer?

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounting for approximately 85% of all cases. Most patients with NSCLC are diagnosed at an advanced stage and have a poor prognosis, with a 5-year survival rate of < 5%. Despite the introduction of new chemotherapeutic agents and molecularly targeted drugs, outcomes remain poor, emphasising the need for new treatment approaches. Inducing or potentiating immune responses via immunotherapeutic manipulation is a viable treatment approach for lung cancer. Antigen-specific, tumour-cell, and dendritic cell-based vaccines have all been evaluated in lung cancer, and some have shown promising clinical activity in phase II trials. These include liposomal BLP25 vaccine (L-BLP25), which targets mucin 1, and melanoma-associated antigen 3 (MAGE-A3) antigen-specific cancer immunotherapeutic (ASCI), which targets MAGE-A3, a peptide expressed almost exclusively on tumour cells. MAGE-A3 ASCI is being evaluated in the adjuvant setting in a phase III trial of patients with early-stage NSCLC, while a phase III trial of L-BLP25 is enrolling patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC. T-cell modulating agents (e.g. antibodies against programmed death 1 and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 [CTLA-4]) are also being investigated. For example, in patients with NSCLC treated with paclitaxel and carboplatin, the phased administration of ipilimumab (an antibody against CTLA-4) resulted in substantial improvements in immune-related progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy alone (5.7 versus 4.6 months; P = 0.05). Immunotherapy in lung cancer is starting to deliver promising results in clinical trials. However, further research will be required to establish the optimal timing of therapy (i.e. in the adjuvant or metastatic settings). In addition, it will be important to determine if immunotherapies are most effective when used alone or in combination with other agents.