[Progress of immune checkpoint inhibitors in neoadjuvant therapy of non-small cell lung cancer]

Lung cancer carries the highest morbidity and mortality out of all malignancies in the world. About 85% of all cases are non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Surgery is currently the optimal treatment for early-stage NSCLC, however, the postoperative recurrence rate is relatively high and the long-term survival of these patients is still a problem to be overcomed. Previous studies have shown that early-stage NSCLC patients may benefit from preoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy when compared to surgery alone, although the benefit is only moderate. More recent publications indicate that immune checkpoint blockade may have better potential in neoadjuvant therapy, with reported major pathological response rates at 20% to 85%, compared to chemotherapy alone. Phase Ⅲ random clinical trials are being implemented to confirm the effect of neoadjuvant immunotherapy in NSCLC. Meanwhile, a number of questions remain unanswered, including the time and course of neoadjuvant immunotherapy, the evaluation criteria of immune-related efficacy, the standardization of pathological evaluation, and how to avoid delays in surgery or misjudgment caused by pseudo-progression.