Dr. Shinohara on Pairing SBRT With Immunotherapy in Prostate Cancer

Eric Shinohara, MD, MSCI, associate professor and interim chair, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discusses the potential to combine stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) with immunotherapy in prostate cancer.

Austin Kirschner, MD, PhD, a physician scientist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is examining the combination of SBRT with immunotherapy, says Shinohara. Although this approach has been investigated in other types of tumors, Kirschner and his team are specifically evaluating the combination in prostate cancer.

One of the focuses of this research is to treat lesions with high doses of radiation and determine whether an immune response can be augmented and impact other tumors in the body that were not treated with the radiation, explains Shinohara. This is an interesting paradigm where radiation may possess the potential to boost the effects of immunotherapy, concludes Shinohara.