Early Time-of-Day Immunotherapy Shows Survival Benefit in Lung Cancer Trial

In a Chinese phase 3 trial (LungTIME-C01) involving 210 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, administering anti-PD-1 immunotherapy before 3:00 PM nearly doubled progression-free survival (11.3 vs. 5.7 months) and significantly improved overall survival (28.0 vs. 16.8 months) compared to later infusions. This early time-of-day treatment was linked to a more robust anti-tumor immune response, characterized by increased levels of activated CD8+ T cells and a more favorable ratio of activated to exhausted T cells, with no increase in treatment-related adverse events. The findings suggest that simply shifting immunochemotherapy to early time-of-day can profoundly enhance efficacy for patients. Source: https://www.nature.com