Abstract
Together with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, the immunotherapy is being increasingly used as another standard treatment option in cancer management, including the treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. The development of immunotherapy was made possible by discovery of immune checkpoints.
Neoplastic cell are able to escape the immune surveillance carried out by lymphocytes in a manner they can shut down the immune response at the level of immune checkpoints. One of these mechanisms is an interaction between programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) located on the surface of immune cells with PD-1 ligand expressed by neoplastic cells.
Antl-PD-1 antibodies nivolumab, and pembrolizumab are examples of a new drugs targeting PD-1 and thus preventing the immune response to be shutted down.