Intrathoracic Progression Is Still the Most Dominant Failure Pattern after First-Line Chemo-immunotherapy in Extensive-Stage Small-Cell Lung Cancer: Implications for Thoracic Radiotherapy
- Author:
Dowook KIM
1
;
Hak Jae KIM
;
Hong-Gyun WU
;
Joo Ho LEE
;
Suzy KIM
;
Tae Min KIM
;
Jin-Soo KIM
;
Byoung Hyuck KIM
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- From:Cancer Research and Treatment 2024;56(2):430-441
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Purpose:This study aimed to compare the failure patterns before and after the introduction of immunotherapy and to determine the role of thoracic radiotherapy (TRT) in extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) treatment.
Materials and Methods:We retrospectively reviewed 294 patients with ES-SCLC, of which 62.2% underwent chemotherapy alone, 13.3% underwent chemotherapy followed by consolidative TRT (TRT group), and 24.5% underwent chemotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI group). We performed propensity-score matching (PSM) to compare each treatment group.
Results:The median follow-up duration was 10.4 months. At the first relapse, in the cohort showing objective response, the proportion of cases showing intrathoracic progression was significantly lower in the TRT group (37.8%) than in the chemotherapy-alone (77.2%, p < 0.001) and the ICI (60.3%, p=0.03) groups. Furthermore, in the subgroup analysis, TRT showed benefits related to intrathoracic progression-free survival (PFS) in comparison with ICI in patients with less than two involved extrathoracic sites (p=0.008) or without liver metastasis (p=0.02) or pleural metastasis (p=0.005) at diagnosis. After PSM, the TRT group showed significantly better intrathoracic PFS than both chemotherapy-alone and ICI groups (p < 0.001 and p=0.04, respectively), but showed no significant benefit in terms of PFS and overall survival in comparison with the ICI group (p=0.17 and p=0.31, respectively).
Conclusion:In ES-SCLC, intrathoracic progression was the most dominant failure pattern after immunotherapy. In the era of chemoimmunotherapy, consolidative TRT can still be considered a useful treatment strategy for locoregional control.
