Recent successes on cancer immunotherapy targeting the immune checkpoint PD‐1 and/or PD‐L1 (also known as B7‐H1 or CD274) by therapeutic antibodies indicate that activating the immune system is beneficial for treating NSCLC in patients whose lung tumors express PD‐L1 (Herbst et al, 2014; Garon et al, 2015; Hirsch et al, 2016; Smyth et al, 2016). This evidence concerns the gene CD274 and cancer.