An immune drug wrapped around surgery cut early lung cancer's return risk by 48% — and deaths by 34%

For people whose lung cancer can still be removed by surgery, the quiet fear is that it comes back. In the Phase 3 NEOTORCH trial, 501 people in China with stage II–III non-small cell lung cancer received chemotherapy plus either toripalimab — a drug that helps the immune system spot and attack cancer — or a placebo, given before and after surgery and then continued as maintenance treatment. After a median follow-up of 48.2 months, people on toripalimab were 48% less likely to see their cancer return, progress, or die (the median time without such an event had not yet been reached, versus 20.2 months with chemotherapy alone), and 34% less likely to die. Tumours also shrank far more before surgery: 47% had a major response, versus 9%, and in 26% no living cancer remained at all, versus 1%. The final results were presented at the ESMO Congress 2026 and published simultaneously in Annals of Oncology, with no new safety warnings.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation