Meta-analysis of the efficacy and safety of sintilimab for treating advanced non-small cell lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from malignant tumors in China, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for >80% of all types of lung cancer. Novel immunotherapeutic agents targeting programmed death protein-1 (PD-1) and its ligands [programmed death ligands (PD-L)1 and 2] have emerged as important therapeutic measures and trends in the treatment of advanced NSCLC. Sintilimab (trade name, Daboshu) is a humanized IgG4 monoclonal antibody targeting PD-1 that was developed by Innovent Biologics and Eli Lilly and Company. Studies have shown that sintilimab has the characteristics of high affinity, long-lasting stability and an increased target occupancy rate, and that it is a broad-spectrum drug. The present study uses a meta-analysis to evaluate the safety and efficacy of sintilimab in treating advanced NSCLC. The PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Chinese Biomedical Literature, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP Chinese Science and Technology Journal and Wanfang Medical databases were searched from their establishment until October 2021. Randomized controlled trials of patients with NSCLC who were treated with conventional chemotherapy (chemotherapy) plus sintilimab treatment or sintilimab alone, compared with a chemotherapy group, were included, and a meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software. The findings revealed that there was no significant difference between the conventional chemotherapy group and the sintilimab group in terms of the overall incidence of adverse drug reactions (ADR) or grade 3–5 ADRs (risk ratio, 1.04; 95% confidence interval, 0.96-1.14; P=0.33), respectively. Sintilimab coupled with chemotherapy outperformed standard chemotherapy in treating advanced NSCLC. The ADRs did not differ considerably from those of conventional chemotherapy, which will help in the assessment of the clinical efficacy of sintilimab combined with chemotherapy and conventional chemotherapy in treating advanced NSCLC.