To many, the recent FDA approval of a combination of chemotherapy and concurrent immunotherapy for the vast majority of patients with advanced (metastatic) non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) probably seems like a great idea.

Let me start by saying that I'm a fan of the immune checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab) and consider it the new standard of care as a single agent (monotherapy) first line treatment for the subset of about 28-30% of patients with advanced NSCLC, either squamous or non-squamous, whose cancers have high level expression