[Influence of smoking on the efficacy of immunotherapy in advanced lung cancers].

INTRODUCTION

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide. It occurs mainly in smokers, but also in 25% of cases in non-smokers. As regards metastatic stages, while immunotherapy has led to improved overall survival, smoking status may potentially influence its effectiveness. The objective of this study was to analyze its effectiveness as first-line treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) according to patient smoking status.

METHOD: This retrospective study covers all patients with stage IV NSCLC treated with first- line immunotherapy, alone or in combination, between January 2018 and 2019, in three Ile de France centers. The primary and secondary endpoints were, respectively, overall survival and progression-free survival, according to smoking status.

RESULTS

The analysis included 105 patients (66.7% men) of whom 38% were active smokers and 9.5% non-smokers, with adenocarcinoma in 65.7% of cases. Median OS and PFS were 17, 23.2, and 24.9 months and 4.9, 7.6, and 4 months for smokers, ex-smokers, and non-smokers respectively, without significant differences.

CONCLUSION

In this study, smoking status did not seem to modify the effectiveness of immunotherapy. Studies on a larger population are called for.