Clinical trials of immunotherapy: Active immunotherapy or therapeutic vaccination

During the recent years, new information obtained from basic immunology and from the use of molecular techniques has advanced our understanding of mechanism of induction of immune response and caused a new wave of studies of active immunotherapy of cancer both at pre-clinical and clincal level. Here we summarize these new findings and illustrate the rationale that has generated a flurry of new approaches which are being translated into clinical protocols. Though many problems have still to be solved, the available studies, which are briefly described, suggest that a clinical benefit could be obtained in metastatic cancer patients vaccinated with appropriate tumor antigens in certain clinical conditions. Altogether, it appears that cancer vaccines can become a valuable additional modality against cancer.