With New Data, Drug Combos, Lung Cancer Experts Scramble to Keep Pace

When oncologist Renato Martins finished his medical training, advanced lung cancer was almost certainly a quick death sentence. “I knew, by name, every patient who had survived two years,” he says.

Thanks in large part to the arrival of cancer immunotherapy, things are much different today. While lung cancer remains by far the leading cause of cancer death, immunotherapy now offers patients with advanced disease—Stage 4 cancer that has spread to other parts of the body—at least the chance to live longer than previously thought possible.