In Reply We would like to thank Zhang and Han and Yang and colleagues for their appreciation of our work in the PEMBRO-RT trial.¹ Both letters address the need for additional research on different radiotherapy modalities in combination with immunotherapy. We agree that our phase 2 study leaves many questions unanswered about the possibilities of this treatment combination. However, in 2019, use of pembrolizumab with or without the addition of chemotherapy became the standard of care in the first-line treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer, as pointed out by Yang and colleagues. Our pembrolizumab monotherapy setting enabled us to generate hypotheses without a possible interference of chemotherapy effects, especially in the subgroups with lower PD-L1 expression. Indeed, these hypotheses will need to be tested and translated to the new treatment landscape.

作为回复，我们要感谢张、韩和杨及其同事对我们在 PEMBRO-RT 试验中的工作的赞赏。¹这两封信都提到了对不同放射治疗方式与免疫治疗相结合的额外研究的需要。我们同意，我们的 2 期研究留下了许多关于这种治疗组合可能性的问题没有得到解答。然而，正如杨及其同事指出的那样，在 2019 年，使用 pembrolizumab 加或不加化疗成为晚期非小细胞肺癌一线治疗的护理标准。我们的 pembrolizumab 单一疗法设置使我们能够产生假设，而不会干扰化疗效果，尤其是在 PD-L1 表达较低的亚组中。事实上，这些假设需要进行测试并将其转化为新的治疗环境。