Influence of Androgen Deprivation Therapy on the PD-L1 Expression and Immune Activity in Prostate Cancer Tissue

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have become a promising new therapy for cancer treatment. However, due to prostate cancer's high heterogeneity and immune-suppressive tumour microenvironment, clinical trials with immune checkpoint inhibitors for prostate cancer resulted in low or no response. This descriptive and retrospective study investigates the influence of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) on PD-L1 expression and CD8(+) T-cell tumour infiltration and activity in primary prostate cancer tissue. Therefore, immunohistochemistry was used to assess PD-L1, CD8(+) T-cell, and the immune activation marker Granzyme B (GrB) in PCa tissue before and under ADT. In line with previous studies, few prostate cancer tissues showed PD-L1 expression and CD8(+) T-cell infiltration. However, PD-L1 expression levels on tumour cells or infiltrating immune cells above 5% generated an immune-suppressive tumour microenvironment harbouring hypofunctional CD8(+) T-cells. Moreover, analysis of a longitudinal patient cohort before and under ADT revealed that ADT increased hypofunctional CD8(+) T cells in the tumour area suggesting a tumour immune milieu optimal for targeting with immunotherapy.