Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines (original) (raw)

Cancer Vaccine Emerging Treatment: Present and Future Prospectives

Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical and Clinical Research, 2012

Cancer is one of the main health problems of mankind. Treatment of cancer can include chemotherapy, surgery, hormone therapy, radiation therapy and biological therapy. A Cancer vaccine shows potential contrivance in the hands of the clinical oncologist. Cancer vaccine therapy is the augmented understanding of mechanisms involved in an antigen- specific T-cell and antibody-mediated or B-cell response. More recently, cancer vaccines targeting well characterized tumor-associated antigens, i.e. molecules selectively or preferentially expressed by cancer cells but not by normal cells have been designed and tested in humans. Outcome obtained as of today with these second-generation vaccines suggest that they are safe and that they can elicit humoral and cellular responses against tumor-specific antigens, without inducing unacceptable experimental signs of autoimmunity. This review summarizes the current knowledge of tumor immunology and types of vaccine. Recently used various vaccine deli...

Cancer Vaccines: Moving Beyond Current Paradigms

Clinical Cancer Research, 2007

The field of cancer vaccines is currently in an active state of preclinical and clinical investigations. Although no therapeutic cancer vaccine has to date been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, several new paradigms are emerging from recent clinical findings both in the use of combination therapy approaches and, perhaps more importantly, in clinical trial design and end point analyses. This article will review recent clinical trials involving several different cancer vaccines from which data are emerging contrasting classic ''tumor response'' (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors) criteria with ''patient response'' in the manifestation of increased patient survival post-vaccine therapy. Also described are several strategies in which cancer vaccines can be exploited in combination with other agents and therapeutic modalities that are quite unique when compared with ''conventional'' combination therapies. This is most likely due to the phenomena that (a) cancer vaccines initiate a dynamic immune process that can be exploited in subsequent therapies and (b) both radiation and certain chemotherapeutic agents have been shown to alter the phenotype of tumor cells as to render them more susceptible to T-cell^mediated killing. Consequently, evidence is emerging from several studies in which patient cohorts who first receive a cancer vaccine (as contrasted with control cohorts) benefit clinically from subsequent therapies.

The landscape of therapeutic cancer vaccine

Cancer vaccines, a unique approach to cancer therapy are the propitious tools in the hands of the clinical oncologist. Immunization with these specific cancer vaccines put forth an antitumor effect by captivating the host immune response, and has immense prospective for avoiding the inherent drug resistance that confines typical cancer management. Strategies to attain affirmative clinical consequences are entrusted better with the combination of these cancer vaccines with the most effectual immunotherapy agents. Advantages recline as they have exquisite specificity, low toxicity, and the prospective for a robust treatment outcome due to immunologic memory. A handful of propitious prophylactic vaccines are found to be more flourishing in cancer deterrence, still the progress of effective cancer vaccines demand for continued efforts, thoughtful clinical trials, and scientific progress for effective and long-term specific cancer vaccines.

Tumor immunogenicity and responsiveness to cancer vaccine therapy: The state of the art

Seminars in Immunology, 2010

Despite enormous effort, promising pre-clinical data in animal studies and over 900 clinical trials in the United States, no cancer vaccine has ever been approved for clinical use. Over the past decade a great deal of progress has been in both laboratory and clinical studies defining the interactions between developing tumors and the immune system. The results of these studies provide a rationale that may help explain the failure of recent therapeutic cancer vaccines in terms of vaccine principles, in selecting which tumors are the most appropriate to target and instruct the design and implementation of state-of-the-art cancer vaccines.

Cancer vaccines: a newer front of immunotherapy

International Journal of Reproduction, Contraception, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 2018

Vaccines have been used as a promising instrument over the years to combat the dreadful communicable diseases. But now owing to epidemiological transition as the burden of non-communicable diseases has increased, efforts are now being made globally to use this weapon for non-communicable diseases like cancer. Cancer vaccines belong to a class of substances known as “biological response modifiers”. These work by stimulating or restoring the immune system’s ability to fight infections and disease. There are two broad types of cancer vaccines: Preventive (or prophylactic) vaccines and Treatment or therapeutic vaccines. Cancer treatment vaccines are made up of cancer cells, parts of cells or pure antigens. Sometimes a patient’s own immune cells are removed and exposed to these substances in the lab to create the vaccine. Cancer treatment vaccines differ from the vaccines that work against viruses. These vaccines try to get the immune system to mount an attack against cancer cells in th...

Cancer immunotherapy: moving beyond current vaccines

Nature Medicine, 2004

Great progress has been made in the field of tumor immunology in the past decade, but optimism about the clinical application of currently available cancer vaccine approaches is based more on surrogate endpoints than on clinical tumor regression. In our cancer vaccine trials of 440 patients, the objective response rate was low (2.6%), and comparable to the results obtained by others. We consider here results in cancer vaccine trials and highlight alternate strategies that mediate cancer regression in preclinical and clinical models.

Therapeutic vaccines for cancer: an overview of clinical trials

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 2014

The therapeutic potential of host-specific and tumour-specific immune responses is well recognized and, after many years, active immunotherapies directed at inducing or augmenting these responses are entering clinical practice. Antitumour immunization is a complex, multi-component task, and the optimal combinations of antigens, adjuvants, delivery vehicles and routes of administration are not yet identified. Active immunotherapy must also address the immunosuppressive and tolerogenic mechanisms deployed by tumours. This Review provides an overview of new results from clinical studies of therapeutic cancer vaccines directed against tumour-associated antigens and discusses their implications for the use of active immunotherapy.

Paradigm Shifts in Cancer Vaccine Therapy

Experimental Biology and Medicine, 2008

Cancer vaccines constitute a unique therapeutic modality in that they initiate a dynamic process involving the host’s immune response. Consequently, (a) repeated doses (vaccinations) over months may be required before patient clinical benefit is observed and (b) there most likely will be a “dynamic balance” between the induction and maintenance of host immune response elements to the vaccinations vs. host/tumor factors that have the potential to diminish those responses. Thus “patient response” in the form of disease stabilization and prolonged survival may be more appropriate to monitor than strictly adhering to “tumor response” in the form of Response Criteria In Solid Tumors (RECIST) criteria. This can be manifested in the form of enhanced patient benefit to subsequent therapies following vaccine therapy. This article will review these phenomena unique to cancer vaccines with emphasis on prostate cancer vaccines as a prototype for vaccine therapy. The unique features of this moda...

Cancer Vaccines in Phase II/III Clinical Trials: State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Current Cancer Drug Targets, 2011

The topic of this review covers a very important branch of cancer research, cancer vaccination. The growing knowledge in tumor immunology has evolved rapidly, starting from unspecific generic stimulation of the immune system to more specific approaches based on the availability of tumor antigens. The review covers molecular and cell biology, and pharmaceutical technology of cancer vaccines. Particularly, it is aimed at highlighting the results of cancer vaccines from phase II and III clinical trials, an issue that is of relevance to better understand how cancer vaccines can successfully complement antitumor therapy, including conventional chemotherapy and the recently developed target-based drugs.