Prostate carcinoma. Vaccination as a new option for treatment

Immune therapy and tumor cell vaccination is a challenging option in prostate cancer therapy, especially as side effects rarely occur. This review highlights recent developments in vaccination therapy of prostate cancer. The FDA approved antigen presenting cell vaccine Sipuleucel-T is described and new strategies of immune therapy like RNA and peptide vaccination are discussed in detail. Currently the effect of prostate cancer vaccination has still limitations, at least partially due to the immune suppressive effects of the tumor microenvironment and regulatory T cells, which suppress the immune effector function. To overcome these hurdles the concept of immune checkpoint modulation, which has the aim to break tolerance mechanisms, is discussed. Potential clinical therapies of checkpoint modulation are outlined.