Meta-Analysis of Efficacy From CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 Inhibitors in Cancer Patients

Li Xu; Xin Yan; Weiyue Ding

doi:10.3389/fonc.2022.876098

Meta-Analysis of Efficacy From CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 Inhibitors in Cancer Patients

Front Oncol. 2022 Apr 28:12:876098. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.876098. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Li Xu^{1

2}, Xin Yan¹, Weiyue Ding^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ College of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China.
² Key Laboratory of Symbolic Computation and Knowledge Engineering of Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun, China.
³ School of Mathematics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.

Abstract

Introduction: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have been approved to prolong overall survival (OS), compared to other treatments. However, the recent studies reported consistent and inconsistent results. Hence, we conducted this meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of ICIs.

Materials and methods: The articles were identified by searching PubMed, Embase, and Google Scholar published up to December 2021. A total of 12,126 participants (6,450 cases and 5,676 controls) were involved in the meta-analysis. Median OS and median progression-free survival (PFS) were selected to evaluate the efficacy of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4), programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), and programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitors (ipilimumab, nivolumab or pembrolizumab, and atezolizumab, respectively). Utilizing the random-effect model, hazard ratios (HRs) with 95 confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated by R software.

Results: We observed a significant association between cancer patients and ICIs in OS (HR = 0.79, CI = 0.74-0.84) and PFS (HR = 0.80, CI = 0.75-0.86).

Conclusions: The meta-analysis suggested that ICIs were associated with obvious improvements in PFS and OS compared with non-ICI therapies.

Keywords: cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4; immune checkpoint inhibitors; meta-analysis; overall survival; programmed cell death 1; programmed death ligand 1; progression-free survival.