Comparison of the efficacy and safety of domestically produced tislelizumab, camrelizumab, and imported pembrolizumab in the treatment of advanced NSCLC: a real-world retrospective study.

Background: Since the imported PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab was listed in China in 2018, China has opened up the era of immunotherapy for malignant tumors, with several domestically produced PD-1 inhibitors coming onto the market one after another. To find out whether there are differences in the efficacy and safety of domestic and imported PD-1 inhibitors in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, we conducted this retrospective study in two tertiary hospitals in China.

Methods: Patients with advanced NSCLC treated with tislelizumab or camrelizumab or pembrolizumab who met the inclusion criteria were screened through the electronic medical record system. A total of 259 patients were screened, but due to the unbalanced baseline, we performed propensity score matching and finally included 149 patients in three groups: pembrolizumab (n = 38), tislelizumab (n = 38), and camrelizumab (n = 73), which had very balanced baseline characteristics in each group after propensity score matching treatment.

Results: The results showed that the median progression-free period was 11.3 m vs 10.1 m vs 8.9 m; p = 0.754; and the objective response rate was 63.2% vs 50% vs 57.5%; P = 0.510 for pembrolizumab, tislelizumab, and carrelizumab, respectively. There was no significant difference in median PFS between PD-L1 expression subgroups. In terms of safety, only skin toxicity of any grade of carrelizumab was higher than that of the other two groups (p = 0.034), and the incidence of grade ≥ 3 adverse reactions was not statistically significant among the three groups.

Conclusion: In this real-world study, the efficacy and safety of the domestically produced tislelizumab, camrelizumab, and the imported pembrolizumab were comparable.