An update on the relevance of vaccine research for the treatment of metastatic melanoma

Abstract

Signal transduction inhibitors and anticheckpoint antibodies have significantly improved survival for metastatic melanoma patients, but most still die within 5 years. Vaccine approaches to induce immunity to well-characterized melanoma-associated antigens, or to antigens expressed on allogeneic tumor cell lines, have not resulted in approved agents. Despite the limitations associated with the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, there now is one intralesional autologous vaccine approved for patients who have primarily soft-tissue metastases. There is continued interest in patient-specific vaccines, especially dendritic cell vaccines that utilize ex vivo loading of autologous antigen, thus bypassing certain in vivo immunosuppressive cells and cytokines. Because of their mechanism of action and limited toxicity, they are potentially synergistic or additive to other antimelanoma therapies.

Keywords

• autologous tumor-associated antigens
• metastatic melanoma
• therapeutic vaccines