MINI REVIEW article

Front. Immunol.

Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1626432

This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancements in Immunotherapy Biologics for Cancer and Infectious DiseasesView all articles

Models for developing oncolytic virotherapy for metastatic prostate cancer

Provisionally accepted
  • Purdue University, West Lafayette, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Cancer has remained the second leading cause of death worldwide for over a century. Despite significant advances, effectively targeting cancer cells and overcoming therapeutic challenges remain critical goals. In this review, we focus on advanced metastatic prostate tumors, where the patients’ five-year survival rate is less than 35 %. While standard androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has been effective for most prostate cancer patients, recurrence of aggressive tumors is common, emphasizing an urgent need for new treatment strategies. Immunotherapy has gained attention for its potential to harness the immune system against cancer cells. Among these, oncolytic virotherapy stands out for its tumor-specific tropism, its ability to transform or convert the immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment by enhancing immune cell infiltration, and its capacity for therapeutic gene delivery. This review explores the background of commonly used viruses, evaluation models (including cell culture, animal models, ex vivo platforms, and clinical trials), and the anticipated outcomes and challenges of oncolytic virotherapy. By addressing these aspects, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state and future directions of oncolytic virotherapy models in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer.

Keywords: oncolytic virus, prostate cancer, Immunotherapy, virotherapy, Models evaluation

Received: 10 May 2025; Accepted: 17 Jun 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Chen and Figueiredo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Marxa L Figueiredo, Purdue University, West Lafayette, United States

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