Who Gets Lung Cancer Immunotherapy in Serbia From Oct. 1?
Starting October 1, immunotherapy in Serbia becomes available to three new groups of lung cancer patients, about 1,000 people. Here is exactly who qualifies and what changes in treatment.
Do you, or someone close to you, belong to the group of patients who will get a new lung cancer therapy starting next month? If the diagnosis is limited stage or extensive stage small cell carcinoma, or unresectable stage III non small cell carcinoma, the answer is yes. The Punim Plucima lung cancer association announced today that starting October 1, 2026, immunotherapy in Serbia will become available to three new groups of patients, and the change is expected to reach about 1,000 people.
Which Three Groups of Patients Get the Therapy
The new therapy is not introduced the same way for everyone. It depends on the stage and type of the disease.
- Limited stage small cell lung cancer. Immunotherapy is introduced as a continuation of treatment, after the patient has gone through chemotherapy and radiation, and only if the disease has not progressed by that point.
- Extensive stage small cell lung cancer. Here the disease has already spread beyond where it started, so immunotherapy begins immediately, alongside chemotherapy, instead of waiting.
- Unresectable stage III non small cell lung cancer. This is a tumor that cannot be operated on because of its location or how far it has spread. After chemotherapy and radiation, if there is no worsening, the patient continues on to immunotherapy.
Dr. Mihailo Stjepanovic, assistant professor and director of the Pulmology Clinic at the University Clinical Center of Serbia, explains that the goal for this last group is to extend the period without disease progression. According to him, among patients with unresectable stage III non small cell carcinoma, nearly half, 43 percent, now live five years past diagnosis, and in a third of them the disease does not progress during that time. He says that result was hard to imagine just a few years ago, specifically for this group of patients.
Why This Matters for Serbia
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Serbia. The association points to the scale of the problem.
“Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from malignant diseases in Serbia, with nearly 7,000 new cases and 5,000 deaths every year,” the Punim Plucima association said in its statement.
Late detection adds to the problem. About 70 percent of patients are diagnosed only once the disease has already reached the metastatic stage, when treatment options are far more limited. Early symptoms such as coughing, fatigue or shortness of breath are often dismissed as harmless, especially by smokers who are used to those complaints.
What Changes in How the Therapy Is Given
Alongside the new indications, subcutaneous immunotherapy is also being introduced, meaning the drug is injected under the skin instead of given by infusion. For patients, that means the therapy takes only a few minutes, instead of the longer time previously spent on an infusion, which also shortens hospital stays.
Who’s Next, Starting Spring 2027
One group still left without immunotherapy for now is patients with squamous cell lung cancer, who are currently treated with chemotherapy alone. For them, the timeline is different: under current plans, immunotherapy for this group, about 600 patients, should become available starting in spring 2027, meaning next year, not from October 1 like the first three groups.
“Patients do not choose the histological subtype of their tumor or their PD-L1 expression level, and that is why they should not have different chances of receiving treatment,” said Olja Corovic, representative of the Punim Plucima patients’ association.
She describes the expanded access to immunotherapy as a major step forward. By one account of her remarks, it is the most significant advance in lung cancer treatment in Serbia in the last three years, while another account has her calling it one of the most significant advances in recent years, depending on which outlet is quoting her. Either way, the substance of her assessment is the same: after years in which a large share of patients had only chemotherapy as an option, stage III non small cell carcinoma and both forms of small cell carcinoma now get a therapy that is already standard practice elsewhere in the world.
If a diagnosis has been made in your family recently, the safest step is to check with the treating physician whether the specific stage and type of the disease falls into one of these three groups, and when the therapy is actually being introduced at your institution.
