Lung Cancer Responds to Chemo-Immunotherapy Despite a Benign Liver Pseudotumor

What happened, in summary

A 66-year-old man was diagnosed in December 2021 with moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinoma in the left lung, with involvement of hilar lymph nodes. He had never smoked and had no evidence of liver disease before cancer treatment.

He received 6 cycles of albumin-bound paclitaxel and lobaplatin chemotherapy together with the immunotherapy drug tislelizumab. The lung cancer showed a partial response, and he then continued tislelizumab alone as maintenance treatment. After 17 maintenance cycles, about 26 months into treatment, imaging showed that the lung cancer remained stable but also revealed a new liver lesion.

Because the liver finding could have represented metastatic cancer, it was biopsied. The tissue showed a regenerative hepatic pseudotumor rather than malignancy. Tislelizumab was discontinued, and he received no further anticancer treatment. Follow-up chest and abdominal scans continued to show a partial response in the lung cancer. At the latest follow-up, he remained clinically stable without liver-related symptoms or abnormal liver tests. His case highlights how a new lesion during immunotherapy may sometimes represent an immune-related complication rather than cancer progression.