Prospects for the therapeutic use of anticancer vaccines

Although a century has passed since initial attempts were made to stimulate the immune system to destroy tumour, the immunotherapy of cancer is still in the early stages. Historically, a variety of specific and nonspecific im munostimulatory strategies have been administered with only modest clinical success. However, recent advances in tumour immunology, most notably the i dentification of genes encoding for cancer regression antigens, have paved the way for the development of a variety of novel and specific Vaccine appr oaches. These include vaccines based on tumour cells, carbohydrates, peptid es and heat-shock proteins, DNA-based vaccination, and the use of recombina nt bacteria and viruses to deliver antigens or the DNA coding for them. Whi le several of these approaches have yielded exciting clinical results, a nu mber of immunological and host obstacles to the successful application of c ancer vaccines remain. Further research is needed on the optimum choice of antigen, delivery vector, adjuvant and administration regimen.