Immune infiltrates and PD-L1 expression in treatment-naive acinar prostatic adenocarcinoma: an exploratory analysis

Tumour-induced immunosuppression plays a role in the development and progression of cancer. Of interest is the interaction between programmed death-1 and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) which can be targeted through immune checkpoint blockade; however, there are limited data surrounding the composition of the immune milieu in prostate cancer. We preliminarily assessed 21 radical prostatectomies in therapy-naive patients for immune markers and PD-L1 expression. The immune infiltrates were higher in adenocarcinoma than benign prostate (lymphocytes p<0.001, macrophages p=0.010) with 5% of cases being PD-L1 high (5% expression). Increased peritumoural CD68 and CD163 expression correlated with lower grade group (GG) (p=0.024 and p=0.014, respectively) with a trend towards increased CD68 expression in lower stage cases (p=0.086). There was also increased CD45 expression in lower GGs (p=0.063). We found the immune infiltrate in acinar prostate cancer to be extremely heterogeneous with an overall immunophenotype unlikely to respond to immune checkpoint blockade.