In advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a growing number of clinical studies have suggested that a lasting response and improvement in long-term survival can be achieved with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), which target programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) or programmed cell death protein ligand-1 (PD-L1) [1–6]. This evidence concerns the gene PDCD1 and non-small cell lung carcinoma.