Can Understanding and Utilizing the Tumor Microenvironment Enhance the Therapeutic Efficacy of Focal Therapy?

Focal therapy (FT) or partial gland ablation (PGA) destroys only a selected part of the prostate with prostate cancer (PCa) and its surroundings to ensure correct treatment. The efficacy of such treatment depends on multiple factors, such as cancer location, its extent, and aggressiveness, but also based on the selected energy, duration of its exposure, and the experience of the treating physician. In order to increase the efficacy of the treatment, it is not only necessary to correctly select the energy, treatment pattern, and duration of a treatment cycle, but we may also try to increase its impact by understanding the tumor microenvironment (TME). TME seems to play an important role in PC progression and metastasis. Additional immunomodulatory effect comes also from the FT itself.