Chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab compared with chemotherapy alone for pretreated EGFR-mutant non-small lung cancer

Platinum doublet chemotherapy is the standard of care in patients with non-small cell lung cancer harboring epidermal growth factor receptor mutation progressing after tyrosine kinase inhibitor. A retrospective study in China compared pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone in these patients. Overall response rate (34.1% versus 20.7%), median progression-free survival (6.7 versus 4.2 months; HR 0.64; p=0.0076) and median overall survival (26.7 versus 13.4 months; HR 0.49; p=0.0052) were better in the pembrolizumab group.The authors conclude that addition of pembrolizumab to platinum doublet chemotherapy was associated with improved efficacy and survival in patients with EGFR-mutant NSCLC after TKI resistance. These findings need to be confirmed in prospective studies.