Safety and effectiveness of neoadjuvant immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy followed by surgical resection in patients with stage I–IIIA small-cell lung cancer: a retrospective single-arm clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Immunotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery all have significant roles in the management of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). Neoadjuvant immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy followed by surgery has shown encouraging efficacy for resectable SCLC with a good tolerability and considerable survival benefit. However, there are still few data on whether surgery for stage I–IIIA SCLC can be performed after immunotherapy with chemotherapy. Therefore, we investigated the safety and effectiveness of neoadjuvant immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy followed by surgery in patients with stage I–IIIA SCLC in the hope of adding new ideas to the treatment of SCLC. METHODS: The study group comprised 19 patients with stage I–IIIA SCLC who received neoadjuvant immunotherapy and chemotherapy between 2019 and 2021. Patients received 2–4 cycles of immunotherapy combined with platinum-containing dual-drug chemotherapy (platinum + paclitaxel) before surgery. Imaging evaluation was performed every two cycles until surgery. Tumor response to neoadjuvant therapy, neoadjuvant treatment related adverse events, perioperative and postoperative complications, surgical resection rate, and degree of tumor regression were evaluated. We obtained follow-up data from the patients’ regular examination or treatment in hospital. If we can’t complete it, contacting patients by telephone or WeChat would be adopted by us. The follow-up was not terminated until 3 months after surgery. RESULTS: The objective response rate (ORR) was 84.2% (16/19), and no patients had progressive disease (PD). Of the 10 patients who underwent surgery, and approximately 9 (90.0%) had R0 resection. There were no perioperative deaths, and 1 case of pyothorax. The rate of pathological complete remission (pCR) and major pathological response (MPR) was 30.0% (3/10), and 40.0% (4/10) respectively. Grade 3–4 adverse reactions comprised 1 case of anemia and 1 case of constipation. CONCLUSIONS: Neoadjuvant immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy followed by surgical resection for patients with stage I–IIIA SCLC is effective and safe with a high ORR and MPR rate, as well as a high R0 resection rate and a tolerable toxicity profile. Whether this regimen gives a survival benefit should be confirmed by further follow-up and larger, randomized controlled trials are required to confirm our findings.