In the third-line setting , for patients who have not received erlotinib or gefitinib , treatment with erlotinib is recommended .
There are insufficient data to recommend routine third-line cytotoxic therapy .
Purpose To provide evidence -based recommendations to up date the American Society of Clinical Oncology guideline on systemic therapy for stage IV non – small-cell lung cancer ( NSCLC ) .
Results This guideline up date reflects changes in evidence since the previous guideline .
Nivolumab versus Docetaxel in Advanced Nonsquamous Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer.
BACKGROUND Nivolumab , a fully human IgG4 programmed death 1 ( PD-1 ) immune-checkpoint-inhibitor antibody , disrupts PD-1-mediated signaling and may restore antitumor immunity . METHODS In this r and omized , open-label , international phase 3 study , we assigned patients with nonsquamous non-small-cell lung cancer ( NSCLC ) that had progressed during or after platinum-based doublet chemotherapy  to receive nivolumab at a dose of 3 mg per kilogram of body weight every 2 weeks or docetaxel at a dose of 75 mg per square meter of body-surface area every 3 weeks . The primary end point was overall survival . RESULTS Overall survival was longer with nivolumab than with docetaxel .  The median overall survival was 12.2 months ( 95 % confidence interval [ CI ] , 9.7 to 15.0 ) among 292 patients in the  nivolumab group and 9.4 months ( 95 % CI , 8.1 to 10.7 ) among 290 patients in the docetaxel group ( hazard ratio for death , 0.73 ; 96 % CI , 0.59 to 0.89 ; P=0.002 ) . At 1 year , the overall survival rate was 51 % ( 95 % CI , 45 to 56 ) with nivolumab versus 39 % ( 95 % CI , 33 to 45 ) with docetaxel . With additional follow-up , the overall survival rate at 18 months was 39 % ( 95 % CI , 34 to 45 ) with nivolumab versus 23 % ( 95 % CI , 19 to 28 ) with docetaxel . The response rate was 19 % with nivolumab versus 12 % with docetaxel ( P=0.02 ) . Although progression-free survival did not favor nivolumab over docetaxel ( median , 2.3 months and 4.2 months , respectively ) , the rate of progression-free survival at 1 year was higher with nivolumab than with docetaxel ( 19 % and 8 % , respectively ) . Nivolumab was associated with even greater efficacy  than docetaxel across all end points in subgroups defined according to prespecified levels of tumor-membrane expression ( ≥1 % , ≥5 % , and ≥10 % ) of the PD-1 lig and . Treatment-related adverse events of grade 3 or 4 were reported in 10 % of the patients in the nivolumab group , as compared with 54 % of those in the docetaxel group . CONCLUSIONS Among patients with advanced nonsquamous NSCLC that had progressed during or after platinum-based chemotherapy  , overall survival was longer with nivolumab than with docetaxel . ( Funded by Bristol-Myers Squibb ; CheckMate 057 Clinical Trials.gov number , NCT01673867 . )
In the third-line setting , for patients who have not received erlotinib or gefitinib , treatment with erlotinib is recommended .
There are insufficient data to recommend routine third-line cytotoxic therapy .
Purpose To provide evidence -based recommendations to up date the American Society of Clinical Oncology guideline on systemic therapy for stage IV non – small-cell lung cancer ( NSCLC ) .
Results This guideline up date reflects changes in evidence since the previous guideline .