Nanomedicine embraces cancer radio-immunotherapy: mechanism, design, recent advances, and clinical translation

Cancer radio-immunotherapy, integrating external/internal radiation therapy with immuno-oncology treatments, emerges in the current management of cancer. A growing number of pre-clinical studies and clinical trials have recently validated the synergistic antitumor effect of radio-immunotherapy, far beyond the "abscopal effect", but it suffers from a low response rate and toxicity issues. To this end, nanomedicines with an optimized design have been introduced to improve cancer radio-immunotherapy. Specifically, these nanomedicines are elegantly prepared by incorporating tumor antigens, immuno- or radio-regulators, or biomarker-specific imaging agents into the corresponding optimized nanoformulations. Moreover, they contribute to inducing various biological effects, such as generating in situ vaccination, promoting immunogenic cell death, overcoming radiation resistance, reversing immunosuppression, as well as pre-stratifying patients and assessing therapeutic response or therapy-induced toxicity. Overall, this review aims to provide a comprehensive landscape of nanomedicine-assisted radio-immunotherapy. The underlying working principles and the corresponding design strategies for these nanomedicines are elaborated by following the concept of "from bench to clinic". Their state-of-the-art applications, concerns over their clinical translation, along with perspectives are covered.

Phase II Trial of Sipuleucel-T and Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiation for Patients with Metastatic Castrate-Resistant Prostate Cancer

(1) We hypothesized that adding concurrent stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SAbR) would increase the time to progression in patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPCA) treated with sipuleucel-T. (2) Patients with a history of prostate cancer (PC), radiographic evidence of metastatic disease, and rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) > 0.2 ng/dL on castrate testosterone levels were enrolled in this single-arm phase II clinical trial and treated with sipuleucel-T and SAbR. The primary endpoint was time to progression (TTP). Cellular and humoral responses were measured using ELISpot and Luminex multiplex assays, respectively. (3) Twenty patients with mCRPC were enrolled and treated with SAbR to 1−3 sites. Treatment was well tolerated with 51, 8, and 4 treatment-related grade 1, 2, and 3 toxicities, respectively, and no grade 4 or 5 adverse events. At a median follow-up of 15.5 months, the median TTP was 11.2 weeks (95% CI; 6.8−14.0 weeks). Median OS was 76.8 weeks (95% CI; 41.6−130.8 weeks). This regimen induced both humoral and cellular immune responses. Baseline M-MDSC levels were elevated in mCRPC patients compared to healthy donors (p = 0.004) and a decline in M-MDSC was associated with biochemical response (p = 0.044). Responders had lower baseline uric acid levels (p = 0.05). No clear correlation with radiographic response was observed. (4) While the regimen was safe, the PC-antigen-specific immune response induced by SAbR did not yield a synergistic clinical benefit for patients treated with sipuleucel-T compared to the historically reported outcomes.

Immunotherapy in Advanced Prostate Cancer-Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Immunotherapeutic treatment approaches are now an integral part of the treatment of many solid tumors. However, attempts to integrate immunotherapy into the treatment of prostate cancer have been disappointing so far. This is due to a highly immunosuppressive, “cold” tumor microenvironment, which is characterized, for example, by the absence of cytotoxic T cells, an increased number of myeloid-derived suppressor cells or regulatory T cells, a decreased number of tumor antigens, or a defect in antigen presentation. The consequence is a reduced efficacy of many established immunotherapeutic treatments such as checkpoint inhibitors. However, a growing understanding of the underlying mechanisms of tumor–immune system interactions raises hopes that immunotherapeutic strategies can be optimized in the future. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the current status and future directions of immunotherapy development in prostate cancer. Background information on immune response and tumor microenvironment will help to better understand current therapeutic strategies under preclinical and clinical development.

Refining Immuno-Oncology Approaches in Metastatic Prostate Cancer: Transcending Current Limitations

OPINION STATEMENT

Due to its immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, prostate cancer has historically been difficult to treat with immuno-oncology approaches. Other than pembrolizumab, which is now regulatory-approved for all microsatellite instability (MSI)-high and tumor mutational burden (TMB)-high advanced solid tumors, sipuleucel-T is the only immunotherapeutic agent approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for prostate cancer. However, sipuleucel-T efficacy is optimal for select patients with indolent metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Although manipulation of immune regulation by blocking immune checkpoints has led to substantial benefit in many cancers, experience with single-agent CTLA-4 and PD-1 or PD-L1 antibodies has shown limited effect for the majority of patients with prostate cancer, especially when administered as monotherapy. Combination therapies are now being attempted, in addition to enrichment strategies employing patient clinicopathologic and biologic characteristics that may heighten responses to immuno-oncology treatment, such as PD-L1 expression, TMB, MSI status, and alterations in CDK12. More work is needed to overcome the immune-exclusive barriers in prostate cancer, such as relatively low TMB, increased activity of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and regulatory T cells, and defects in major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I expression and interferon (IFN)-1 signaling. A promising approach and the likely next step in immuno-oncology for prostate cancer involves forced direction to markers expressed by prostate cancer tumor cells, such as prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), that bypass the typical requirements for MHC class I interaction. The future will incorporate bispecific antibodies and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, potentially targeted towards phenotypic markers identified by next-generation PET imaging as part of the next wave of "precision medicine" in prostate cancer. Ultimately, we believe that the immune-exclusive prostate cancer tumor microenvironment can be overcome, and that patient outcomes can be enhanced through these more refined immuno-oncology approaches.

A Systematic Review of the Emerging Role of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Metastatic Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer: Will Combination Strategies Improve Efficacy?

CONTEXT

The role of immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) in the treatment of prostate cancer (PC) still remains elusive. It has been proposed that combination of ICI with other molecules increases the efficacy of immunotherapy in PC.

OBJECTIVE

To systematically review the literature to assess the potential role of ICI in combination with additional therapies for the management of metastatic castration-resistant PC (mCRPC).

EVIDENCE ACQUISITION

A systematic review using Medline and scientific meeting records was carried out in September 2020 according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analyses guidelines. Ongoing trials of immunotherapy with standard mCRPC therapeutics were identified via a systematic search on ClinicalTrials.gov.

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS

A total of five full-text papers, ten congress abstracts, and 15 trials on ClinicalTrials.gov were identified. Preclinical evidence suggests that combinational approaches might be considered to enhance the efficacy of ICI in PC patients. This led to the design of more than 50 immunotherapy-based clinical trials. The majority of the studies focus on ICI combinations with vaccines, androgen deprivation therapy, chemotherapy, PARP inhibition, radiotherapy, and prostate-specific membrane antigen-guided radioligand therapy. Preliminary analyses reported promising findings for the use of ICI in combination with other anticancer therapies. However, no phase 3 trial has yet reported final results, so no level 1 evidence with long-term outcomes currently supports the combination of ICI with mCRPC therapies.

CONCLUSIONS

Preclinical and clinical trials have demonstrated that combining immunotherapy with standard mCRPC treatment options has the potential to provide a synergistic effect. Nonetheless, a better understanding of the mechanism and of the optimal treatment approach is still needed.

PATIENT SUMMARY

We reviewed the literature on immunotherapy in combination with standard treatments for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Current evidence supports the hypothesis that immunotherapeutic drugs might be effective in mCRPC if combined with other treatment options. However, results of ongoing trials are still awaited before this novel treatment approach can be implemented in the daily practice.

Meeting report from the Prostate Cancer Foundation PSMA theranostics state of the science meeting

INTRODUCTION

The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) convened a PCF prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) Theranostics State of the Science Meeting on 18 November 2019, at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY.

METHODS

The meeting was attended by 22 basic, translational, and clinical researchers from around the globe, with expertise in PSMA biology, development and use of PSMA theranostics agents, and clinical trials. The goal of this meeting was to discuss the current state of knowledge, the most important biological and clinical questions, and critical next steps for the clinical development of PSMA positron emission tomography (PET) imaging agents and PSMA-targeted radionuclide agents for patients with prostate cancer.

RESULTS

Several major topic areas were discussed including the biology of PSMA, the role of PSMA-targeted PET imaging in prostate cancer, the physics and performance of different PSMA-targeted PET imaging agents, the current state of clinical development of PSMA-targeted radionuclide therapy (RNT) agents, the role of dosimetry in PSMA RNT treatment planning, barriers and challenges in PSMA RNT clinical development, optimization of patient selection for PSMA RNT trials, and promising combination treatment approaches with PSMA RNT.

DISCUSSION

This article summarizes the presentations from the meeting for the purpose of globally disseminating this knowledge to advance the use of PSMA-targeted theranostic agents for imaging and treatment of patients with prostate cancer.