Immunotherapy for Lung Cancer

Immunotherapy for lung cancer offers new options and hope for people who don’t adequately respond to chemotherapy. People treated with this lung cancer breakthrough are living longer than ever before.

At Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, our doctors were among the first in the nation to study immunotherapy and offer it to patients. We continue to offer early access to promising new immunotherapy drugs through our lung cancer and clinical research programs.

How Does Immunotherapy Treat Lung Cancer?

The FDA approved the first two immunotherapy drugs to treat lung cancer in 2015. Immunotherapy taps into the power of your immune system by stimulating it to target and kill cancer cells.

Immunotherapy works by either:

• Blocking the immune system from performing effectively
• Helping the immune system increase its ability to find and destroy lung cancer cells
• Helping the immune system maintain its ability to find and destroy lung cancer cells

Immunotherapy is systemic, meaning these medications are given intravenously (IV) and travel in your bloodstream. You may receive immunotherapy:

• By itself
• With chemotherapy
• After chemotherapy and radiation

Immunotherapy for Lung Cancer: Why Choose Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health?

At Penn Medicine, we are a leader in immunotherapy research. Our patients have been among the first to receive immunotherapy regimens before they were FDA-approved, including the very first lung cancer immunotherapy drugs and double, or dual, immunotherapy.

Dual immunotherapy acts as a double agent: One drug boosts the body's immune defenses while another targets cancer immune cells. Through clinical trials, our patients were treated with this new standard of care years before it was FDA-approved in 2020. Read more about our lung cancer clinical trials.

You also benefit from:

• Experienced specialists: Our highly trained team includes experts who have subspecialized in lung cancer care for more than a decade. These experts use their experience and deep knowledge to improve care and outcomes for our patients. Meet our lung cancer team.
• Care in your community: You receive academic medical center care right in your neighborhood with your loved ones close by. A sense of community lays the foundation for your patient experience. You’re a name, not a number to us—and you will feel that every step of the way.
• Customized treatment protocols: During the COVID-19 pandemic, we adjusted pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) and nivolumab (OPDIVO®) regimens to reduce how often people have to come in and receive treatment. The result? We improved our patients’ quality of life without sacrificing the treatment’s effectiveness.

How We Treat Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and Small Cell Lung Cancer with Immunotherapy Drugs

We use advanced diagnostic tools like biomarker testing to better understand the makeup of each lung tumor. PDL1, part of that testing, is a protein found on the surface of some cancer cells. These proteins act like a disguise, so immune cells think cancer cells are normal and leave them alone.

Drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors can be used to get your immune system to target and destroy cancer cells. These drugs target proteins like PDL1 by blocking them. Doctors use these immunotherapies to treat both small cell and non-small cell lung cancers.

Your doctor may recommend immunotherapy:

• As a primary treatment if the tumor has high levels of PD-L1
• In combination with chemotherapy if PD-L1 levels are low
• After combined chemotherapy and radiation for people who can’t have lung cancer surgery

Your doctor will identify the best immunotherapy drug for your diagnosis. You then receive these drugs through an IV every few weeks.