Immunotherapy in locally-advanced non-small cell lung cancer: releasing the brakes on consolidation?

Locally-advanced non-small cell lung cancer (LA-NSCLC) is optimally treated with definitive chemoradiation or surgery in combination with chemotherapy or chemoradiation. Prognosis, however, remains poor, and attempts to improve outcomes using consolidation or maintenance chemotherapy have not improved overall survival. Given the limited success of traditional cytotoxic chemotherapies as maintenance therapy for LA-NSCLC, recent studies have investigated the role of novel agents such as maintenance or consolidation, including antiangiogenic agents and molecular targeted therapy. With multiple newly reported trials demonstrating improved outcomes with immunotherapy over cytotoxic chemotherapy for stage IV NSCLC, integrating immunotherapy with definitive chemoradiation regimens or as consolidative therapy for LA-NSCLC is an attractive option. The recently published START trial is the first to test immunotherapy in LA-NSCLC in a randomized, phase III setting. In that trial, the administration of maintenance tecemotide (L-BLP25), which induces a T-cell response to the mucin 1 (MUC1) glycoprotein, was found to be well tolerated and improve overall survival compared with placebo among patients receiving concurrent, but not sequential, chemoradiation. Despite the promising findings of this trial, numerous questions regarding immunotherapy for LA-NSCLC remain, and several additional immunotherapy trials are underway or planned in this patient population.