Active immunization approaches to cancer therapy with cancer vaccines are now available. The production of a vaccine involves the selection of appropriate antigens that will stimulate an effective antitumor response. Tumor antigens can be either derived from the degradation and processing of unfolded intracellular proteins or damaged or dying tumor cells.

In whole tumor autologous vaccines, research has found the tumor cells express a vast array of tumor-associated antigens (TAA). A vaccine is prepared and produced from the patient’s isolated circulating cancer cells in the laboratory. These antigens stimulate the immune system to create an antitumor response. Therapies can be repeated every three months if necessary, depending on the patient’s clinical status.

Dendritic cell vaccines are made with patient blood cells. They are cultured with immune-stimulating agents to create the patient’s dendritic cells. The dendritic cells attack the cancer tumors then presented to the T cells, which are the lymphocytes of the patients for cancer-killing. These dendritic cells are critical in the cancer community cycle. These vaccines, composed of dendritic cells, are the most potent antigen-presenting and stimulatory cells for the induction of T lymphocyte cell-dependent cancer cell death. In vivo, the tumor secretes several factors that suppress dendritic cells led to immunosuppression and increased cancer metastasis.

The overall state of the patient’s immune system is of utmost importance that needs to be optimized. Optimization is done through specific therapies that target the various arms of the immune system.

the patient’s baseline dangerous cells are evaluated before the administration of the dendritic cells after the correction of the patient’s underlying immunity. We now know that tumor cells may attempt to destroy the immune system. For example, transforming growth factor (TGF) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) interfere with underlying immune function and need to be corrected. These are evaluated on each patient and optimized.

Some patients also undergo adoptive cell transfer immunotherapy. This therapy refers to the transfer of a tumor-bearing host of immune lymphocytes with anticancer activity; this is known as CART therapy. The idea is to harvest the patient’s T cells, expand them outside of the body, and return them as an expanded army of T lymphocyte cells to restore immune function.