Dr. Slovin on Immunotherapy Agents for Prostate Cancer

Susan F. Slovin, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses potential immunotherapy agents for patients with prostate cancer.

Immunotherapy in prostate cancer is an exceptionally challenging area, explains Slovin. After the success of sipuleucel-T (Provenge), there have been combinatorial approaches using radiopharmaceuticals, such as radium-223 dichloride (Xofigo), the checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy), as well as some chemotherapy regimens.

There have been at least 3 phase I and II trials of the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab. The original phase I and II trial was done with and without radiation, and gave a signal that perhaps there was some long-term durable responses, although not without autoimmune events, such as hypothyroidism and rashes. This is all thought to be an on-target effect of these antibodies, states Slovin.