Dr. Wise Discusses Challenges With Immunotherapy in Prostate Cancer

David R. Wise, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, assistant professor, Department of Urology, NYU Langone's Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses challenges with immunotherapy in prostate cancer.

The community has hit a significant road block with the initial generation of studies looking at nivolumab (Opdivo), says Wise. There was not a single response in the initial 17 patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), leading many to believe that prostate cancer was not going to be sensitive to checkpoint blockade.

Progress has been seen with studies of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with stage III CRPC, says Wise. Additionally, there was an abstract presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting showing that in a 20-patient cohort, there were 5 responses to treatment with pembrolizumab. This 20% response rate is not much different from other cancer types, Wise adds.