Individualised neoantigen cancer vaccine therapy

Active specific immunotherapy with personalised cancer vaccines has been investigated for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, cancer vaccines by injection of patient-derived autologous tumour cells or tumour lysates were given to patients and achieved modest outcomes. For example, Laucius and colleagues reported that a vaccine consisting of autologous, irradiated melanoma cells mixed with adjuvant Bacillus Calmette-Guérin resulted in regression of metastasis in four of 18 participants with surgically incurable melanoma.