Prostate cancer in Black men responds better to immunotherapy

Abstract

Although Black men die of prostate cancer more often than White men, they may be more responsive than this cohort to immunotherapy, according to a study published in Nature Communications.1 The reason may be attributed to an increase in a specific type of tumor immune cell, which could lead to new, precision-based immunotherapy for men of all races who have localized aggressive and advanced prostate cancer. The research team, led by Edward M. Schaeffer, MD, PhD, chief of urology and the Edmund Andrews Professor of Urology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, found that specific immune cells known as plasma cells were more prevalent in tumors from Black men and men of African ancestry than in those from White men. These cells also correlated with improved cancer survival after surgery, and this indicates that they may be linked to prostate cancer immune responsiveness. Other recent studies have suggested that Black men with advanced prostate cancer have improved survival with immunotherapy treatment. However, scientists have not had a method of predicting which individual patients, regardless of race, may respond best to immunotherapy. These results may contribute evidence in that area, the study authors noted. The investigators analyzed the genomics of 1300 tumor samples annotated with self-identified race or genetic ancestry. Results showed that, on average, more plasma cells were found in tumors of Black men than in those of White men. Furthermore, all men in the study with elevated plasma-cell levels had improved cancer-free survival rates after surgery, regardless of race. As a result, testing for these cells may help to identify more men who will benefit from immunotherapy, the authors concluded. The researchers stressed that identifying and characterizing effective targets for lethal prostate cancer in Black men or men of African ancestry is a significant and unmet need because they are twice as likely to die of the disease as other men. Dr. Schaeffer and his colleagues are developing immunotherapy-based, precision-medicine clinical trials to determine whether increased plasma-cell levels in men of every race and of all ancestries can improve treatment effectiveness and survival.