Overview

• Patients receiving nivolumab with chemotherapy before surgery achieved a 10% absolute improvement in five-year overall survival compared to chemotherapy alone.
• About 24% of patients in the immunotherapy arm had no detectable cancer at surgery, and none of those individuals died from lung cancer within five years.
• Adding nivolumab did not raise the rate of surgical complications or treatment-related adverse effects, supporting its safety in the neoadjuvant setting.
• CheckMate816 enrolled 358 patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer across multiple countries, and its results have prompted adoption of neoadjuvant nivolumab plus chemotherapy as a standard treatment for eligible patients worldwide.
• The NeoCOAST-2 trial is testing antibody-drug conjugates alongside chemo-immunotherapy before surgery to seek further improvements in pathological response and long-term outcomes.