Brain metastases (BMs) indicate poor outcomes and are commonly excluded in immunotherapy clinical trials in advanced lung cancer; moreover, the effect of BM status on immunotherapy efficacy is inconsistent and inconclusive. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to assess the influence of BM status on immunotherapy efficacy in advanced lung cancer.
Electronic databases and all major conference proceedings were searched without language restrictions according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidelines. We extracted randomized clinical trials on lung cancer immunotherapy that had available overall survival (OS) and/or progression-free survival (PFS) data based on the BM status. All analyses were performed using random effects models.
Fourteen randomized clinical trials with 9,089 patients were identified. Immunotherapy conferred a survival advantage to BM patients [OS-hazard ratio (HR), 0.72; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.58–0.90; P = 0.004; and PFS-HR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.52–0.87, P = 0.003]. Non-BM patients could also derive a survival benefit from immunotherapy (OS-HR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.71–0.80; P <0.001; and PFS-HR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.56–0.82, P <0.001). The pooled ratios of OS-HRs and PFS-HRs reported in BM patients
We demonstrated that BM status did not significantly influence the immunotherapy efficacy in lung cancer, suggesting that both BM and non-BM patients could obtain comparable benefits.