Prostate cancer has a window where immune therapy can help — and researchers just mapped it

Timing, it turns out, may be everything. Studying men receiving hormone therapy for prostate cancer, researchers at Roswell Park found the immune system swings into a cancer-fighting posture in the first months of treatment — then, after about six months, shifts toward suppression. That early window, reported in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, is when immune-boosting drugs called checkpoint inhibitors are most likely to help. The finding gives oncologists a concrete, testable recipe: pair the two treatments early, rather than reaching for immunotherapy late, after resistance has set in.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation