Neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy confers survival advantage for patients undergoing sleeve lobectomy

Abstract OBJECTIVES It has been demonstrated that neoadjuvant immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) plus chemotherapy was safe and feasible referred to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for patients with non-small cell lung cancer undergoing sleeve lobectomy. Nevertheless, no survival data were reported in the previous researches. Therefore, we conducted this study to compare neoadjuvant ICI plus chemotherapy versus neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by sleeve lobectomy for long-term survival outcomes. METHODS Patients who underwent bronchial sleeve lobectomy following neoadjuvant ICI plus chemotherapy or neoadjuvant chemotherapy were retrospectively identified. Treatment response, perioperative outcomes, event-free survival and overall survival were compared between groups in the overall and the inverse probability of treatment weighting-adjusted cohort. RESULTS A total of 139 patients with 39 lung cancer recurrence and 21 death were included. Among them, 83 (59.7%) and 56 (40.3%) patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and neoadjuvant ICI plus chemotherapy, respectively. After inverse probability of treatment weighting, more patients achieved complete pathological response in the neoadjuvant ICI plus chemotherapy group (6.0% vs 26.3%, P < 0.001). There was no significant difference regarding overall postoperative complication (23.8% vs 20.2%, P = 0.624) and specific complications (all P > 0.05). Patients receiving neoadjuvant ICI plus chemotherapy had favourable event-free survival (hazard ratio 0.37, 95% confidence interval 0.16–0.85, P = 0.020) and overall survival (hazard ratio 0.23, 95% confidence interval 0.06–0.80, P = 0.021). Multivariable analysis revealed that neoadjuvant ICI plus chemotherapy was an independent predictor for favourable event-free survival (hazard ratio 0.37, 95% confidence interval 0.15–0.86, P = 0.020, adjusted for clinical TNM stage). CONCLUSIONS Neoadjuvant ICI plus chemotherapy was correlated with favourable long-term survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer undergoing sleeve lobectomy.