Expert opinion on biological therapy
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One approach in the immunotherapy of cancer patients involves vaccination with peptides derived from tumour-associated antigens specifically designed to associate with T cells in the context of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I or II molecules. Several clinical trials in different tumour types have been conducted utilising this vaccination strategy. ⋯ However, this represents an evolving field and, thus, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions concerning the efficacy of peptide-based vaccines for cancer immunotherapy. Improvements to peptide vaccination, including the addition of various adjuvants, the utilisation of peptide-pulsed dendritic cells, multipeptide vaccinations, the addition of helper peptides and peptide delivery through the use of mini-genes, are encouraging and serve as important guides for future research.