Cancer vaccines.

Cancer vaccines - a dream or a reality? There is no doubt that a time will come when this new approach to cancer treatment will provide opportunities that will be both complementary and synergistic with existing treatments. Novelty is often linked to risk, and if there is a given medical field that desperately needs therapeutic improvement, cancer is it. Recent advances on the understanding of the functioning and manipulation of the immune system and on the host-tumour relationship, and on tumour escape, will soon pay off. However, the development of cancer vaccines is not an easy undertaking and the multitude of obstacles are presented and reviewed in this article. The cancer vaccine 'detractors' that are arguing negatively on the chances of success are, to this date, correct. Nevertheless, a parallel could be drawn from the monoclonal antibodies, which have suffered from a long and difficult history, to hold promise in man. Recent technological progress has once again demonstrated that one can eventually bypass the commonly accepted barriers, as there are now monoclonal-based products currently helping patients. The entire oncology community is eagerly awaiting the next chapter in the cancer vaccine story.