Comparative analysis of immune checkpoint inhibitors in first-line treatment of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: a network meta-analysis.

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of first-line immunochemotherapy in the treatment of advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (CRD42021287033). PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science were systematically searched to obtain randomized controlled trials, and the outcome indicators of the reports were compared and analyzed. A total of 3163 patients from five reported randomized controlled trials were included in the meta-analysis. The results showed the comprehensive benefits of toripalimab combined with chemotherapy, in terms of overall survival (hazard ratio: 0.59; 95% CI: 0.43-0.81) and progression-free survival (hazard ratio: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.46-0.73). Toripalimab combined with chemotherapy may be a better choice for first-line immunochemotherapy, although this needs to be verified by clinical studies.