Since the United States (US) Food and Drug Administration granted nivolumab approval for patients with metastatic NSCLC in 2015, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) targeting programmed cell death 1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) have become integrated into the treatment of such patients, leading to historical developments in the treatment of non-driver-mutated NSCLC (5). Here, PDCD1 is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.