Dendritic Cell-Based Immunotherapy for Prostate Cancer

Abstract EN

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs), which display an extraordinary capacity to induce, sustain, and regulate T-cell responses providing the opportunity of DC-based cancer vaccination strategies.

Thus, clinical trials enrolling prostate cancer patients were conducted, which were based on the administration of DCs loaded with tumor-associated antigens.

These clinical trials revealed that DC-based immunotherapeutic strategies represent safe and feasible concepts for the induction of immunological and clinical responses in prostate cancer patients.

In this context, the administration of the vaccine sipuleucel-T consisting of autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells including APCs, which were pre-exposed in vitro to the fusion protein PA2024, resulted in a prolonged overall survival among patients with metastatic castration-resistent prostate cancer.

In April 2010, sipuleucel-T was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for prostate cancer therapy.