Promise of Immunotherapy in Lung Cancer.

Abstract

Metastatic lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer mortality globally in both men and women, with 5-year survival of less than 5%. Standard treatment approaches for metastatic lung cancer are based on chemotherapy, with radiation and surgery used for local control, but these rarely result in relapse-free survivals longer than 2-3 years, although they may provide symptom relief. Thus, additional tools are needed to treat this disease. In this chapter, we discuss the various immune-based cancer treatments for lung cancer patients that are being developed, and the increasing awareness that therapies targeted at overcoming immune evasion mechanisms may be essential to clinical efficacy.