Checkpoint inhibitors plus chemotherapy for first-line treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

BACKGROUND: We conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of upfront add-on immunotherapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). METHODS: We performed a literature search on first-line chemotherapy ± immunotherapy in NSCLC. We utilized Revman version 5.3 to calculate the estimated pooled hazard ratio for overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) and pooled risk ratio for objective response rate (ORR), all-grade and high-grade adverse events with 95% CI. RESULTS: We analyzed 4322 patients. The pooled hazard ratios for OS, PFS and ORR were 0.74 (95% CI: 0.62–0.88; p = 0.0007), 0.62 (95% CI: 0.57–0.68; p = 0.00001) and 1.51 (95% CI: 1.3–1.74; p = 0.00001), respectively. The pooled risk ratios for all-grade and high-grade adverse events were 1.01 (95% CI: 0.99–1.03; p = 0.27) and 1.17 (95% CI: 1.07–1.28; p = 0.0006), respectively. CONCLUSION: Add-on immunotherapy significantly improves PFS, OS and ORR for the first-line treatment of advanced NSCLC with a reasonable safety profile.