One in seven men in North America is expected to be diagnosed with prostate cancer (PCa) during their lifetime ( 1 , 2 ). While a wide range of treatment options including surgery, radiation, androgen deprivation and chemotherapy have been in practice for the last few decades, there are limited treatment options for metastatic and treatment resistant disease. Immunotherapy targeting T-cell associated immune checkpoints such as CTLA-4, PD-L1, and PD-1 have not yet proven to be efficacious in PCa. Tumor mutational burden, mutations in DNA damage repair genes, immune cell composition and density in combination with their spatial organization, and expression of immune checkpoint proteins are some of the factors influencing the success of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies. The paucity of these features in PCa potentially makes them unresponsive to contemporary immune checkpoint inhibition. In this review, we highlight the hallmark events in the PCa tumor immune microenvironment and provide insights into the current state of knowledge in this field with a focus on the role of tumor cell intrinsic events that potentially regulate immune related events and determine therapeutic outcomes. We surmise that the cumulative impact of factors such as the pre-treatment immune status, PTEN expression, DNA damage repair gene mutations, and the effects of conventionally used treatments on the anti-tumor immune response should be considered in immunotherapy trial design in PCa.

Highlights NK cell infiltration to solid tumors independently predicts improved OS. We reviewed 53 studies and meta-analyzed hazard ratios from 30. Meta-analysis revealed that NK cell infiltration predicts decreased risk of death. NK prognostic value is related to identifying marker and subtumor location. NK cell infiltration may be associated with tumor stage and grade.

Background Molecular subtyping of urothelial cancer (UC) has significantly advanced the understanding of bladder tumor heterogeneity and development of prognostic and predictive biomarkers. Evolving evidence across cancers strongly suggests that tumor immunoediting has a profound impact on the behaviour of cancer cells and their adaptation to the co-evolving microenvironment and response to treatment. In alignment with these concepts, recent immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapies in UC have demonstrated the predictive potential of mutations in the DNA damage repair (DDR) genes. A comprehensive understanding of DDR gene inactivation associated expression of immune regulatory genes could thus aid in expansion of current immunotherapies and predictive biomarkers for the design of patient-tailored combination treatments. Methods We investigated pre-treatment tumor transcriptomic profiles of the five recently described molecular subtypes of muscle invasive urothelial cancer (MIUC; n = 408) from The Cancer Genome Atlas, to determine subtype specific immune cell abundance, expression of 67 immune regulatory genes, and association with DDR gene inactivation (via mutation, copy number alteration) profiles. Results Analysis using CIBERSORT immune cell abundance determination tool showed significant differences in immune cell profiles and abundance between MIUC subtypes. Expression patterns of a selected panel of 67 genes including both immune stimulatory and inhibitory genes, showed significant associations with subtypes, and DDR gene mutation status. Conclusion Findings from our study provide compelling evidence for co-expression of multiple immune checkpoint genes including, PD-1 , PD-L1, IDO1, TIGIT, TIM-3, TGFB1, LAG3, and others, that potentially contribute to compensatory immune evasion in bladder tumors. Our findings also emphasize the urgent need for biomarker discovery approaches that combine molecular subtype, DDR gene mutation status, tumor immune landscape classification, and immune checkpoint gene expression to increase the number of patients responding to immunotherapies. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s40425-019-0619-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

ObjectiveBreast cancer is the most common cancer among women world‐wide. In North America survival rates are >80%, resulting in a large population of survivors. The goal of this review was to systematically explore the literature to identify the status of body image and factors that can impact the body image of older breast cancer survivors.MethodsA systematic review of the literature was conducted and registered with PROSPERO (CRD42019133617). EMBASE and PubMed were searched for articles including terms related to “body image” and “breast cancer.” Duplicates were removed and the remaining 322 abstracts were screened. Articles published before 2000, were off‐topic, or those that were non‐primary research articles were excluded. Sixty‐nine remaining full‐length articles were screened for language, gender and location. Seven articles underwent quality assessment of which five passed and were reviewed in depth. The remaining two articles were briefly discussed.ResultsThe literature review suggests that body image is considered important in older BCS and that body image may impact or be impacted by several factors including age, menopausal status, mental health, treatment modality and exercise. Additionally, themes of dealing with physical changes and the length of time women are impacted following treatment were explored.ConclusionOur findings highlight that older women may be at an advantage in terms of being post‐menopausal, however concerns surrounding physical and emotional changes affecting body image are indeed present. Future studies on breast cancer survivorship should consider the inclusion of body image as an outcome measure in addition to including individuals representing a wide range of ages.

Ovarian cancer (OC) is diagnosed in ~22,000 women in the US each year and kills 14,000 of them. Often, patients are not diagnosed until the later stages of disease, when treatment options are limited, highlighting the urgent need for new and improved therapies for precise cancer control. An individual's immune function and interaction with tumor cells can be prognostic of the response to cancer treatment. Current emerging therapies for OC include immunotherapies, which use antibodies or drive T cell-mediated cancer recognition and elimination. In OC, these have been limited by adverse side effects and tumor characteristics including inter- and intra-tumoral heterogeneity, lack of targetable antigens, loss of tumor human leukocyte antigen expression, high levels of immunosuppressive factors, and insufficient immune cell trafficking. Natural killer (NK) cells may be ideal as primary or collateral effectors to these nascent immunotherapies. NK cells exhibit multiple functions that combat immune escape and tumor relapse: they kill targets and elicit inflammation through antigen-independent pathways and detect loss of HLA as a signal for activation. NK cells are efficient mediators of tumor immune surveillance and control, suppressed by the tumor microenvironment and rescued by immune checkpoint blockade. NK cells are regulated by a variety of activating and inhibitory receptors and already known to be central effectors across an array of existing therapies. In this article, we highlight interactions between NK cells and OC and their potential to change the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and participate in durable immune control of OC.