Kim YJ, Keam B, Ock CY, et al. - Whether pembrolizumab and paclitaxel combination therapy affords a safe and effective treatment option for patients with etoposide/platinum-refractory extensive disease (ED) small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), was investigated in this multi-center, phase II study. The participants were administered paclitaxel 175 mg/m² every 3 weeks for up to six cycles. From the second cycle, pembrolizumab 200 mg was added, which was continued until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Overall 26 patients were enrolled. The confirmed objective response rate was 23.1% (95%CI: 6.9%–39.3%). The median progression-free survival was 5.0 months and the median overall survival was 9.1 months. Febrile neutropenia (7.7%), neutropenia (7.7%), asthenia (7.7%), hyponatremia (7.7%), and type I diabetes (7.7%) were documented as the grade 3 or 4 adverse events that occurred. Except for theMET copy number gain, no specific genetic changes correlated with the treatment were revealed via targeted gene sequencing. In this study, moderate activity and an acceptable toxicity profile of pembrolizumab and paclitaxel combination therapy was evident in patients with refractory ED-SCLC.