Abstract:Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a high-grade neuroendocrine carcinoma characterized by rapid growth and metastasis. Treatment-na?ve SCLC patients exhibit high sensitivity to chemotherapy, and platinum-based chemotherapy can significantly improve their survival rate. However, most patients are prone to develop drug resistance and relapse after chemotherapy, leading to their poor prognosis. In recent years, immunotherapy has emerged as a novel strategy for the treatment of SCLC by activating or enhancing the patient's own immune system to identify and attack tumor cells, yet it also faces challenges of resistance. Therefore, the study of the resistance mechanism underlying chemotherapy and immunotherapy is still crucial for understanding and overcoming drug resistance phenomenon and guiding clinical individualized treatment. This review will summarize current chemotherapy and immunotherapy approaches for SCLC, elucidate their respective resistance mechanisms, and highlight recent advances in immunotherapy, and further discuss the post-resistance treatment strategy, in order to explore better intervention measures for the treatment of SCLC.