REVIEWS  LUNG CANCER 

Minerva Chirurgica 2009 December;64(6):643-53

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Cancer vaccines for non-small-cell lung cancer

Palma M., Choudhury A., Mellstedt H. ✉

Department of Oncology, Karolinska Institutet, Cancer Centrum Karolinska (CCK), Solna, Sweden

Lung cancer is globally the second most common form of cancer in both men and women and the single largest cause of cancer-related mortality in the world. It is a disease with poor prognosis and the survival statistics have scarcely improved since historical times. The advent of targeted therapies has caused an incremental increase in survival figures. Nevertheless, significant progress in treatment outcomes need to be achieved before any perceptible improvement in overall survival of lung cancer patients becomes evident. The use of active-specific immunotherapy or cancer vaccines for the treatment of lung cancer is still in its infancy. Nevertheless several cancer vaccines have demonstrated clinical effects and improvements in overall survival in phase II and phase III trials and several more clinical trials are currently ongoing. This review summarizes the recent developments in NSCLC vaccines.