Metastatic lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide with a 5-year survival of less than 5%. With the approval of programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) inhibitors in advanced lung cancer, such as pembrolizumab, there has been an improvement in response rates and survival compared to chemotherapy.
However, there is still a need for improvement in response rates in first-line treatments for patients with stage 4 Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) without genetically targetable alterations, especially in those patients with PDL-1 <50%.
This trial is important because it seeks to discover whether the responses seen in first line treatments with PD-1 inhibitors + chemotherapy can be augmented with the addition of GM-CSF during the maintenance phase with pembrolizumab +/- pemetrexed.