A new study adds to the evidence that immunology is superior to chemotherapy in the treatment of lung cancer. 

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide; the American Lung Association estimates more than 158,000 people in the United States will die from the disease this year alone. Also, the major reason why lung cancer is so deadly is that often by the time it is first diagnosed it has already spread and is difficult to treat.

A team of UCLA cancer researchers looked at over 1,000 people with small-cell lung cancer whose tumors expressed a certain type of biomarker called PD-L1. Non-small cell lung cancer accounts for approximately 85 percent of all lung cancers.

Those patients who received the immunotherapy drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab) lived significantly longer than those treated with chemotherapy, the study found.
In addition, this was also found to be the case for patients with a small amount of PD-L1, indicating the treatment might be appropriate for a broader group of patients, the study said.

"This treatment provides real hope of long-lasting responses while avoiding the toxicities of typical chemotherapy in a broad population of lung cancer patients," said senior author Dr. Edward Garon, of the study, which is published online in The Lancet.