Pembrolizumab is effective for a patient with extensive intracranial metastasis of non-small cell lung cancer poorly responsive to chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery and other targeting therapy: a case report

Here we reported a patient with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that relapsed two times after resection of the tumor, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and a targeting therapy during a disease course of nearly 4 years. In the second relapse, huge intracranial metastases occurred with symptoms such as severe headache, bedridden and dying feelings. After using the anti-programmed death-1 (anti-PD-1) antibody Pembrolizumab for 2 months, NSCLC disappeared completely and symptoms improved greatly at least for 6 months, indicating that anti-PD-1 antibody has great potential for treatment of NSCLC. In addition, antibodies targeting PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint are safe and well tolerated.General Aerospace Hospital; Hematology Research Laboratory, Peking University First HospitalSCI(E)ARTICLE24001-40041