Review article

The Future of Therapeutic Vaccination of Prostate Carcinoma

Stanimir Vuk-Pavlović ; Stem Cell Laboratory, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center; Division of Hematology and Division of Preventive and Occupational Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine; College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA

Abstract

The lecture summarizes author’s views of the current status of the clinically most advanced studies of therapeutic cellular vaccination of disseminated castration-resistant prostate cancer. The author discusses an allogeneic whole-cell prostate cancer vaccine that doubled the progression-free survival compared to historic controls in a phase 2 study and a phase 3 study of a preparation of autologous immune cells that demonstrated a four-month extension of overall survival. The analysis of such limited and transient effects of the current immunotherapy methods leads to the conclusion that the future of vaccine-based immunotherapy of prostate cancer will have to account for prostate cancer stem/initiating cells and for systemic immunosuppression observed in prostate cancer patients. Immunosuppression includes the failure not only of antigen-specific immune cells, but of the cells of innate immunity as well. Most importantly, major breakthrough in prostate cancer immunotherapy will be greatly facilitated by the advances in systems-biology based understanding of the co-evolution of the malignancy and immunity.

Keywords

cancer stem/initiating cells; cellular vaccine; prostate cancer; progression–free survival; systemic immunosuppression; therapeutic vaccination

Hrčak ID:

63163

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/63163

Publication date:

15.12.2010.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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