BACKGROUND: Active immunotherapy has been successful in preventing many infectious diseases, and is being explored for its anti-tumor use. Purified antigens, peptides, gene-based systems and antigens contained in whole cells or cell lysates are used in specific active immunotherapy for cancer, known as cancer vaccines. Cancer vaccines do not directly kill tumor cells, but prime a specific humoral and/or cellular immune response against the tumor. Up to date, many kinds of cancer vaccines have been tested in the world and have shown their own advantages. Heat shock protein (HSP)-based cancer vaccine is one of the outstanding representatives. In this paper, we review recent advances in HSP-based cancer vaccines.
DATA SOURCES: An English-language literature search was conducted using MEDLINE (1990-2005) on HSP, cancer vaccines and other related subjects.
RESULTS: Several kinds of HSP-based cancer vaccines which have been explored worldwide, include tumor derived HSP-peptide complex cancer vaccines, artificially reconstituted HSP-peptide complex cancer vaccines, HSP-peptide fusion protein cancer vaccines and HSP-based DNA cancer vaccines, etc. Many HSP-based cancer vaccines are being tested in clinical trials, and some are being tested in phase III clinical trials at present.
CONCLUSION: The available results in preclinical tests and clinical trials indicate that HSP-based cancer vaccines are promising in cancer therapy.