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Atezolizumab addition to platinum doublet: evaluating survival outcomes for patients with extensive disease small cell lung cancer

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Abstract

Background

The efficacy of adding atezolizumab to the platinum doublet regimen for extensive disease small cell lung cancer (ED-SCLC) remains marginally limited.

Methods

We retrospectively assessed the real-world efficacy and safety of atezolizumab in addition to carboplatin and etoposide (EP + A), versus carboplatin and etoposide (EP) alone in previously untreated ED-SCLC patients.

Results

From a total of 99 patients, 46 were assigned to the EP + A group, and 53 to the EP group. No significant difference was observed in progression-free survival between the groups. However, the overall survival (OS) was significantly longer in the EP + A group (20.8 vs 12.1 months; HR: 0.52; p = 0.0127). Patients older than 70 years, male, with performance status 0–1, without liver metastasis, and low levels of C-reactive protein and neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio, experienced longer OS in the EP + A group compared to the EP group.

Conclusion

The addition of atezolizumab to the platinum doublet regimen significantly extended OS in ED-SCLC patients, particularly among certain subgroups, suggesting its potential value in personalized treatment strategies. Further investigation is warranted to validate these findings.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Nobuaki Kobayashi, upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their gratitude to all the staff involved in the patient care and data management at our institution. We would also like to thank our colleagues for their insightful discussions and support throughout this study.

Funding

The authors declare that this study received no external funding.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Sousuke Kubo and Nobuaki Kobayashi contributed equally to this work. They are co-first authors of this article.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pulmonology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Fukuura 3-9, Kanazawa-Ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 236-0004, Japan

    Sousuke Kubo, Nobuaki Kobayashi, Hiromi Matsumoto, Kohei Somekawa, Ayami Kaneko, Hisashi Hashimoto, Keisuke Watanabe, Nobuyuki Horita, Yu Hara & Takeshi Kaneko

  2. Respiratory Disease Center, Yokohama City University Medical Center, 4-59 Urafune-Cho, Minami-Ku, Yokohama, Japan

    Shuhei Teranishi & Makoto Kudo

Authors
  1. Sousuke Kubo
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  2. Nobuaki Kobayashi
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  3. Hiromi Matsumoto
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Contributions

SK: conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing—original draft, visualization. NK: conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing—original draft, visualization. HM: methodology, data curation, visualization. KS: methodology, data curation. AK: methodology, data curation. HH: data curation, supervision. ST: data curation. KW: investigation, data curation. NH: supervision. YH: supervision. MK: supervision. TK: supervision. SK and NK contributed equally to this work. They are co-first authors of this article.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nobuaki Kobayashi.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Conflict of interest

No conflicts of interest were declared by the authors.

Ethics statement

This study was approved by the Yokohama City University Hospital institutional review board (B191200048).

Consent

This retrospective study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Yokohama City University Hospital, which waived the requirement for informed consent due to the retrospective nature of the study.

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Kubo, S., Kobayashi, N., Matsumoto, H. et al. Atezolizumab addition to platinum doublet: evaluating survival outcomes for patients with extensive disease small cell lung cancer. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 149, 17419–17426 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-023-05457-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-023-05457-9

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