The patients with a TPS 90–100% continued first-line pembrolizumab for longer than those with a TPS 50–89%; this was driven by a reduced risk of treatment failure in the late phase, suggesting that PD-L1 expression levels might be a predictive biomarker of immunotherapy benefit in the late phase among NSCLC patients with a TPS ≥50%. Here, CD274 is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.