Cancer Vaccines

Cancer vaccination can be preventive, protecting against oncogenic agents, or active, combating existing cancerous cells.

Like traditional vaccines, preventive cancer vaccines are administered to healthy individuals, protecting them against certain cancer-causing viruses.

For example, the human papillomavirus vaccine protects against the common viral strains causing cervical cancer.

In contrast, active vaccines are typically used to treat existing cancers by stimulating the immune system to recognize and attack tumor cells.

Whole-cell treatment vaccines usually use genetically modified cancer cells. For example, GVAX vaccine uses irradiated cells, which produce cytokine GM-CSF to stimulate anti-tumor immune responses.

Specific tumor antigens are used in vaccines, like the PROSTVAC prostate cancer vaccine, which uses a recombinant poxvirus to deliver the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, gene to the host cells for an immune response.

Lastly, dendritic cell vaccines, such as Provenge for prostate cancer, use isolated patient dendritic cells.

These APCs are exposed to cancer-specific antigens like PSA and reintroduced intravenously into the patient for a targeted immune response.