REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Thoracic Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1690367
This article is part of the Research TopicReviews in Thoracic OncologyView all 6 articles
Unlocking the potential of immunotherapy for patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer
Provisionally accepted
Sandip Pravin Patel1Justin Gainor2
Steven Kao3
Se-Hoon Lee4Tony Mok5Riyaz Shah6Caicun Zhou7
Solange Peters8*- 1UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, San Diego, United States
- 2Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, United States
- 3Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, Camperdown, Australia
- 4Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- 5State Key Laboratory of Translational Oncology, Department of Clinical Oncology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
- 6Maidstone Hospital, Maidstone, United Kingdom
- 7shanghai east hospital, Shanghai, China
- 8Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Following positive results in advanced and metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), there has been a move toward the application of immunotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced, resectable, oncogene driver–negative disease. To date, there have been eight Phase III trials across the adjuvant, neoadjuvant, and perioperative settings that demonstrate benefit with (chemo)- immunotherapy in patients with resectable NSCLC. Given the wealth of immunotherapy treatment regimens both available and under investigation in this setting, there is a need to determine the optimal timing of immunotherapy treatment (neoadjuvant, perioperative, or adjuvant) across disease stages to aid clinical decision-making. Established treatment guidelines often diverge, highlighting the need for a multidisciplinary team approach and consensus decision-making based on the latest evidence in the resectable setting. Finally, there is an unmet need surrounding the role of key predictive factors and response assessments, to assist clinicians in selecting patients for immunotherapy regimens. The aim of this review is to evaluate the current data and key considerations surrounding immunotherapy for the treatment of resectable NSCLC, including key parameters to inform de-escalating and escalating treatment approaches.
Keywords: Immunotherapy, Resectable, NSCLC, locally advanced, Neoadjuvant, Perioperative, adjuvant, PD-L1
Received: 21 Aug 2025; Accepted: 10 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Patel, Gainor, Kao, Lee, Mok, Shah, Zhou and Peters. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Solange Peters, solange.peters@chuv.ch
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