Two vs three cycles of neoadjuvant sintilimab plus chemotherapy for resectable non-small-cell lung cancer: neoSCORE trial
Miner Shao, Jie Yao, Yunke Wang, Lufeng Zhao, Baizhou Li, Lili Li, Zuqun Wu, Zexin Chen, Junqiang Fan, Fuming Qiu
Abstract
Lung cancer is the predominant cause of cancer-related deaths globally, with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounting for 85% of all cases. 1 The five-year overall survival (OS) after surgery remains poor because of the high rate of postoperative recurrence and metastasis. Recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have shown promising efficacy in resectable NSCLC. A previous study reported that two cycles of neoadjuvant sintilimab achieved a major pathological response (MPR) rate of 40.5% in stage IA-IIIB NSCLC. 2 Recently, the CheckMate-816 trial demonstrated that neoadjuvant nivolumab plus chemotherapy produced superior pathological complete response (pCR) rates compared to chemotherapy alone. 3 At present, no prospective randomized study evaluating different cycles of neoadjuvant immuno-chemotherapy has been conducted. On the basis of the inspiring efficacy and the important gap of optimal treatment period in neoadjuvant ICI plus chemotherapy, we conducted this study to evaluate the outcome of two vs three cycles of neoadjuvant sintilimab with platinum-based chemotherapy in resectable IB-IIIA NSCLC patients (NCT04459611).