The Future Direction of Cancer Vaccines: An Editorial

Abstract

In the past, vaccines were defined as prophylactic entities. Today, there are two types of vaccines: prophylactic for prevention, and
therapeutic for the treatment of infections or cancers. Therapeutic cancer vaccine, in fact, represents an option for active immunotherapy for the treatment of late-stage and/or prevention of recurrent diseases.1 The function of a therapeutic cancer vaccine in patients is the eradication of cancer cells by strengthening the patient’s own immune response.2 This type of immunotherapy not only provides a new modality for cancer treatment but also paves the way for designing various therapeutic vaccines for chronic infections. 3

In spite of vast progress in this pathway, developing effective and safe therapeutic vaccines is still in its infancy when compared with prophylactic vaccines and immunotherapeutic agents.4 Before new technologies were applied for developing therapeutic vaccines, a few of them like bacilli galmette-guerrin (BCG) was used for the treatment of bladder, and prostate cancers.5,6 Recently, it has been reported successful use of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine for the treatment of multiple cutaneous malignancies. 7