In recent years, great progress has been made in the treatment of lung cancer, which was largely given by the use of immunotherapy. Nowadays, the survival of patients with generalized non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is not just a few months anymore.
This has been evidenced also by the IMpower150 study, in which atezolizumab was added to bevacizumab and chemotherapy in patients with metastatic non-squamous NSCLC. The main idea was to hypothesize that VEGF blockade would lead to greater efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with non-squamous NSCLC.
Results of the study showed a significant prolongation of progression-free survival as well as overall survival. Higher efficacy was observed in the group of patients with high PD-L1 expression, however even in patients with low expression, there was a noticeable therapeutic benefit, as well as in the subgroup of patients with liver metastases or in patients with EGFR or ALK mutations.