Patients who have previously treated, advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tend to have bad prognosis. Atezolizumab, a fully humanized, engineered monoclonal antibody against the protein programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), shows effective against several types of tumors, including NSCLC. Now a study demonstrates that some patients with previously treated NSCLC indeed benefit from atezolizumab treatment even after their disease has progressed. The study, led by scientists at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Virginia Cancer Specialists Research Institute, Genentech, University Hospitals KU Leuven, Paul Sabatier University, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, and Lungenfachklinik Immenhausen, is published 9 March 2016 in The Lancet. Lung cancer is the second most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death. NSCLC accounts for up to 85% of all lung cancers, and it is usually divided into adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma , and large cell carcinoma. It usually grows and spreads more slowly than small cell lung cancer, and it produces no symptoms until the disease until the disease is well advanced. Metastatic, or stage IV NSCLC, has a five-year survival rate of only about 1%. Early diagnosis is crucial for better outcomes. Although there are a variety of treatment options for patients such as surgery, radiofrequency ablation, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapies, and immunotherapy. In most cases, more than one treatment approach is used. But for those with advanced disease, more effective therapies are still in need. For this work, the team evaluated the efficacy and safety of atezolizumab versus docetaxel (a chemotherapy medication used to treat many different cancers) in previously treated NSCLC. They study enrolled patients with NSCLC who progressed on post-platinum chemotherapy. 142 patients were given atezolizumab, and 135 patients received docetaxel. Results showed that patients receiving the antibody atezolizumab had better survival compared to patients in the docetaxel group. By analyzing PD-L1 expression, the researchers demonstrated this increasing improvement in overall survival was related to increasing PD-L1 expression. Taken together, the study shows that the antibody drug atezolizumab markedly prolonged survival of patients with previously treated NSCLC, and that PD-L1 immunohistochemistry expression could help predict which patients would benefit from atezolizumab treatment. Atezolizumab has already been approved by the FDA for bladder cancer. Findings of this study indicates that this anti-PD-L1 antibody could also be used in other types of cancer. (Cusabio offers Biotin conjugated antibody for scientific research.)