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Overview

A cancer vaccine is a vaccine that either treats existing cancer or prevents development of cancer. Vaccines that treat existing cancer are known as therapeutic cancer vaccines. Some of the vaccines are "autologous", being prepared from samples taken from the patient, and are specific to that patient. Vaccines are medicines that help the body fight disease. They can train the immune system to find and destroy harmful germs and cells. There are many vaccines that you receive throughout your life to prevent common illnesses. There are also vaccines for cancer. There are vaccines that prevent cancer and vaccines that treat cancer.

There are vaccines that can prevent healthy people from getting certain cancers caused by viruses. Like vaccines for the chicken pox or the flu, these vaccines protect the body from these viruses. This type of vaccine will only work if a person gets the vaccine before they are infected with the virus.

Approved vaccine

There are two type of vaccines that prevent cancer approved: HPV vaccine and Hepatitis B vaccine.
1) HPV vaccine
The vaccine protects against the human papillomavirus (HPV). If this virus stays in the body for a long time, it can cause some types of cancer. The has approved HPV vaccines to prevent: Cervical, vaginal, oral cancer, and vulvar cancers, Anal cancer and Genital warts.

2) Hepatitis B vaccine
This vaccine protects against the hepatitis B virus (HBV). This virus can cause liver cancer.

There are vaccines that treat existing cancer, called treatment vaccines or therapeutic vaccines. These vaccines are a type of cancer treatment called immunotherapy. They work to boost the body's immune system to fight cancer. Doctors give treatment vaccines to people who already have cancer. Different treatment vaccines work in different ways.

These two vaccines are traditional preventive vaccines that target the viruses that can cause certain cancers. They may help protect against some cancers, but they don’t target cancer cells directly because cancer cells have not yet been formed or found. These types of vaccines are only useful for cancers known to be caused by infections. But most cancers, including colorectal, lung, prostate, and breast cancers, are not thought to be caused by infections.

Vaccines to treat cancer

Cancer treatment vaccines are different from the vaccines that work against viruses. These vaccines try to get the immune system to mount an attack against cancer cells in the body. Instead of preventing disease, they are meant to get the immune system to attack a disease that already exists.

Some cancer treatment vaccines are made up of cancer cells, parts of cells, or pure antigens (certain proteins on the cancer cells). Sometimes a patient’s own immune cells are removed and exposed to these substances in the lab to create the vaccine. Once the vaccine is ready, it’s injected into the body to increase the immune response against cancer cells. Vaccines are often combined with other substances or cells called adjuvants that help boost the immune response even further.

Cancer vaccines cause the immune system to attack cells with one or more specific antigens. Because the immune system has special cells for memory, it’s hoped that the vaccine might continue to work long after it’s given.
1) Sipuleucel-T (Provenge): This drug is used to treat advanced prostate cancer that is no longer being helped by hormone therapy.
2) Talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC): This vaccine is approved to treat advanced melanoma skin cancer. It is made from a herpes virus that has been altered in the lab to produce a substance that the body normally produces, called a cytokine. This cytokine boosts the immune system.

Clinical trial Vaccines

Clinical trials are key to learning more about both cancer prevention vaccines and cancer treatment vaccines.

Researchers are testing vaccines for many types of cancer, including:
a) Bladder cancer with he HER2 antigen.
b) Brain tumors with certain molecules on the surface of brain tumor cells.
c) Breast cancer with treatment vaccines for breast cancer and prevent breast cancer.
d) Colorectal cancer for treatment vaccines that tell the body to attack cells with antigens thought to cause colorectal cancer. these antigens include carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), MUC1, guanylyl cyclase C, and NY-ESO-1.
e) Lung cancer for treatment vaccines.
f) Leukemia with treatment vaccines for various types of leukemia, such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).