In this study, patients with stage IIIB to IV pLELC who were diagnosed via biopsy and computed tomography/positron emission tomography at The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University and The People’s Hospital of Chenzhou City between January 2012 and August 2020 were retrospectively investigated. The inclusion criteria were as follows: confirmed pathological diagnosis of pLELC, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS) ≤ 2, and ≥2 regular treatment cycles. The exclusion criteria were as follows: had previous treatment after diagnosis, non first-line treatment, or lacked completed radiology or follow-up data. Finally, 68 patients were included in the study (Figure 1
The collected clinical data of the patients included sex, age, smoking history, ECOG PS, Epstein-Barr encoding region (EBER), PD-L1 expression (22C3 PD-L1 antibody, Dako, Denmark), tumor location, clinical TNM (cTNM) stage, treatment mode, treatment cycle, treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs), and PFS. cTNM was determined according to the 8th edition of the lung cancer staging system of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (29 (link)). Based on the different treatment modes collected, the patients were divided into chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and chemoimmunotherapy groups.
The collected clinical data of the patients included sex, age, smoking history, ECOG PS, Epstein-Barr encoding region (EBER), PD-L1 expression (22C3 PD-L1 antibody, Dako, Denmark), tumor location, clinical TNM (cTNM) stage, treatment mode, treatment cycle, treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs), and PFS. cTNM was determined according to the 8th edition of the lung cancer staging system of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (29 (link)). Based on the different treatment modes collected, the patients were divided into chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and chemoimmunotherapy groups.