Stereotactic radiosurgery with immunotherapy is associated with improved overall survival in patients with metastatic melanoma or non-small cell lung cancer: a National Cancer Database analysis

Purpose Immunotherapy is now a first-line treatment for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanomaQuery. It is important to understand the relationship between immunotherapy and radiation to the brain. The aim of this study was to assess the role of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) or WBRT in addition to immunotherapy in patients with melanoma or NSCLC metastatic to the brain. Methods/patients Using the National Cancer Database, 2951 patients with NSCLC and 936 patients with melanoma treated with immunotherapy were identified. Patients were classified as having received immunotherapy alone, immunotherapy with SRS, or immunotherapy with whole-brain radiation therapy (WBRT). Kaplan–Meier, multivariate Cox regression analyses, and propensity matching were performed to evaluate the impact of adding SRS to immunotherapy on overall survival (OS). Immortal survival bias was accounted for by only including patients who received radiation before immunotherapy and time zero was defined as the start of immunotherapy. Results 205(6.9%) and 75(8.0%) patients received immunotherapy with no radiation, 822(27.9%) and 326(34.8%) received SRS and immunotherapy, and 1924(65.2%) and 535(57.2%) received WBRT and immunotherapy for NSCLC and melanoma, respectively. Adding SRS to immunotherapy was associated with improved OS in multivariate analyses (NSCLC HR = 0.81, 95% CI 0.66–0.99, p = 0.044; melanoma HR = 0.63, 95% CI 0.45–0.90, p = 0.011). The addition of WBRT to immunotherapy did not improve OS in patients with melanoma nor NSCLC. Conclusions This analysis suggests that treatment with SRS and immunotherapy is associated with improved OS compared to immunotherapy alone for patients with melanoma or NSCLC metastatic to the brain.