Penile cancer: Updates in systemic therapy

Abstract

Penile cancer is a rare genitourinary malignancy with a greater incidence in parts of Asia, South America, and Africa. Outcomes are very poor in patients with advanced disease and in those who do not respond to first-line multimodal therapy. Among systemic therapy options, platinum-based chemotherapy is used in the first-line; however, approximately half of patients do not benefit. Response rates to systemic therapy as subsequent line treatment are historically dismal. There is also a paucity of prognostic and predictive tools within the context of penile cancer. As such, there remains an urgent need to expand systemic treatment options for patients with advanced penile cancer. The purpose of this review is to summarize the existing evidence for standard-of-care lines of systemic treatment, examine the potential of novel lines of systemic therapy, and provide an update as to the status of these new therapies within the context of penile cancer.

Keywords: Adoptive cell therapy; Chemotherapy; Human papilloma virus; Human papilloma virus-vaccine; Immunotherapy; Penile cancer.