| Abstract: |
Prostate cancer, the first solid tumor to have an approved autologous immune therapy, continues to show suboptimal responses to a wide variety of immunologic platforms. While deemed a “bland” or “cold” tumor, nevertheless, immune infiltrates can be found not only in the primary but also at metastatic sites. However, attempts to make this tumor become immunologically “hot,” i.e., inducing an immune infiltrate indicating a response to an immune agent, remain challenging. While prostate cancer has had some durable responses to select checkpoint inhibitors, including CTLA-4 and PD-1, respectively, overall, clinical responses have been marginal. Antibodies and T-cell responses have been measured against several immunologic agents, but they do not correspond with clinical benefit as seen in other solid tumors. This review will discuss the intricacies of the tumor microenvironment of prostate cancer and attempt to identify and define the role of immune biomarkers for this disease. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. |
