A new form of immunotherapy using innovative nanoparticles can delay resistance to hormone therapy and help men with prostate cancer live longer. Researchers from the University of Sheffield have today published findings from a Prostate Cancer UK-funded study, which shows a new form of immunotherapy could give men much more time before their cancer becomes resistant to hormone therapy. For thousands of men diagnosed with prostate cancer, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is a powerful first-line treatment.
Although initially effective in limiting the growth and spread of cancer, in some men their tumors develop resistance to this treatment, so their cancer spreads further throughout the body, becoming incurable. Immunotherapy has had huge success in other cancers - offering long-term cures for previously untreatable cancers. However, this success has not translated to prostate cancer, and a huge focus of research has been to understand why.
The team used cutting edge-techniques to study how immune cells function within prostate tumours, especially after ADT, leading to the development of an entirely new way to deliver immunotherapy. Published in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, their study is the first to show that carefully designed nanoparticles can be used to stimulate immune cells called T cells to attack cancer cells. They found that this markedly delays the onset of resistance to ADT.
Professor Claire Lewis, from the University of Sheffield's, School of Medicin.