• 1. The First Clinical Department of Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, 730000, P. R. China;
  • 2. Department of Thoracic Surgery, Gansu Provincial Hospital, Lanzhou, 730000, P. R. China;
GOU Yunjiu, Email: gouyunjiu@163.com
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Objective  To systematically review the sex differences in efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Methods  We conducted a computer search of Medline, The Cochrane Library, and EMbase from inception to November 2022 to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that assessed the efficacy of ICIs for NSCLC patients. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.4 software. Results  Finally 16 RCTs with a total of 9 653 patients were included, and all were evaluated as high-quality literature using the modified Jadad scale. Meta-analysis results showed that in female NSCLC patients receiving immune therapy, the median overall survival (OS) [HR=0.72, 95%CI(0.61, 0.85), P<0.001] was longer than in males [HR=0.73, 95%CI(0.69, 0.78), P=0.401]. Males [HR=0.64, 95%CI(0.58, 0.71), P=0.171] had an advantage over females [HR=0.76, 95%CI(0.57, 1.03), P<0.001] in median progression-free survival (PFS). Conclusion  Females receiving ICIs have immunotherapeutic advantages in terms of median OS compared to males, while males are more likely to benefit statistically in terms of median PFS than females.