Intratumoral dose heterogeneity promotes adaptive anti-tumor immunity and predicts clinical response to radiopharmaceutical therapy

Radiopharmaceutical therapies (RPT) deliver non-uniform radiation dose in tumors and the impact of this on response is poorly understood. Dose heterogeneity could engender treatment resistance in low dose regions, yet we hypothesize that a broader array of dose-dependent immuno-radiobiological mechanisms in tumor microenvironments (TME) and preservation of immune function in low-dose regions could promote adaptive anti-tumor immunity and response. In murine models, non-uniform lutetium-177 delivering 20 Gy in a TME induced broader immunomodulatory effects and T cell-dependent survival improvement compared to more uniform distributions. Preserving low-dose regions promoted dendritic cell activation and TME infiltration of clonally expanded CD8+ T cells. In three independent cohorts of patients with prostate cancer, heterogeneous tumor dose distribution strongly correlated with improved clinical outcomes. These findings defy expected radiobiological dose-response and define a novel mechanism of action for RPT, supporting clinical investigation of dose distribution for optimizing patient selection and personalized dosing.