[Perioperative Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer]

Surgery is an important treatment for resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, some patients experience the recurrence even after complete resection, and perioperative systemic therapy can improve treatment outcomes for patients receiving surgery. In recent years, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have been a standard treatment in addition to platinum-based chemotherapy for those patients, and perioperative chemotherapy plus ICI have shown improvements of pathological response or event-free survival, with overall survival benefits in some trials. However, these data of treatment benefits are different among patients with each stage, driver gene alterations, or PD-L1 expression. Assessment of molecular residual disease (MRD) using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has been reported to be associated with pathological response or prognosis, although further prospective validation is needed. ICIs have become an important component of perioperative treatment for patients with resectable NSCLC.