Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

Immunotherapy for advanced penile cancer — rationale and potential

Penile carcinoma is a rare disease that is associated with substantial morbidity. Advances in cytotoxic chemotherapy have been disappointing in the first-line and salvage settings, but the association with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and a tumour-site agnostic approach form the basis of ongoing clinical trials evaluating immunotherapy strategies.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Bleeker, M. C. et al. Penile cancer: epidemiology, pathogenesis and prevention. World J. Urol. 27, 141–150 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Buonerba, C. et al. Prognostic and predictive factors in patients with advanced penile cancer receiving salvage (2nd or later line) systemic treatment: a retrospective, multi-center study. Front. Pharmacol. 7, 487 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Miralles-Guri, C. et al. Human papillomavirus prevalence and type distribution in penile carcinoma. J. Clin. Pathol. 62, 870–878 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Stevanovic, S. et al. Complete regression of metastatic cervical cancer after treatment with human papillomavirus-targeted tumor-infiltrating T cells. J. Clin. Oncol. 33, 1543–1550 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Trimble, C. L. et al. Safety, efficacy, and immunogenicity of VGX-3100, a therapeutic synthetic DNA vaccine targeting human papillomavirus 16 and 18 E6 and E7 proteins for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 2/3: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2b trial. Lancet 386, 2078–2088 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Le, D. T. et al. PD-1 blockade in tumors with mismatch-repair deficiency. N. Engl. J. Med. 372, 2509–2520 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Chalmers, Z. R. et al. Analysis of 100,000 human cancer genomes reveals the landscape of tumor mutational burden. Genome Med. 9, 34 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Trafalis, D. T. et al. Evidence for efficacy of treatment with the anti-PD-1 Mab nivolumab in radiation and multichemorefractory advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma. J. Immunother. 41, 300–305 (2018).

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Ottenhof, S. R. et al. Expression of programmed death ligand 1 in penile cancer is of prognostic value and associated with HPV status. J. Urol. 197, 690–697 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Necchi, A. et al. First-line therapy with dacomitinib, an orally available pan-HER tyrosine kinase inhibitor, for locally advanced or metastatic penile squamous cell carcinoma: results of an open-label, single-arm, single-centre, phase 2 study. BJU Int. 121, 348–356 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Guru Sonpavde.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

B.M. is a consultant for Bayer, Astellas, AstraZeneca, Seattle Genetics, Exelixis, Nektar, Pfizer, Janssen, and Genentech; and has received research support (institutional) from Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) and speaker fees from Clinical Care Options and OncLive. G.S. is a consultant for Bayer, Sanofi, Pfizer, Novartis, Eisai, Janssen, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Merck, Genentech, Argos, EMD Serono and Agensys/Astellas; has received research support (institutional) from Bayer, Onyx, Celgene, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, Janssen, AstraZeneca, and BMS; has received speaker fees from Clinical Care Options, Physicians Education Resource (PER), Research to Practice (RTP), and Onclive; and is an author for Uptodate.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

McGregor, B., Sonpavde, G. Immunotherapy for advanced penile cancer — rationale and potential. Nat Rev Urol 15, 721–723 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-018-0083-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-018-0083-0

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing