First-line immunotherapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer: current progress and future prospects

Global Cancer Statistics 2022 reported the prevalence and high mortality rate of lung cancer. Notably, non-small cell lung can-cer (NSCLC) accounts for the majority of the histologic types1. Precision therapy for lung cancer has progressed rapidly and immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have become a leading research topic. Indeed, ICI therapy has been shown to improve the prognosis of lung cancer patients. ICI monotherapy or combination therapy has now become the first-line stand-ard treatment option for patients with driver gene-negative advanced NSCLC2. Despite the clear progress being made in immunotherapy, many issues still need to be further explored, such as the selection of optimization strategies and the identi-fication of efficacy-related biomarkers. Herein we will summa-rize the current status of first-line immunotherapy for NSCLC, discuss the research progress with respect to immunotherapy biomarkers, and clarify the challenges and future directions of first-line immunotherapy for NSCLC.