Cancer vaccines as a targeted immunotherapy approach for breast cancer: an update of clinical evidence

Abstract

Introduction: Breast cancer (BC) is the first common neoplastic malignancy and the second leading cause of death in women worldwide. Conventional treatments for BC are often associated with severe side effects and may even lead to late recurrence. For this reason, in recent years, cancer immunotherapy (e.g. cancer vaccines), a novel approach based on the specificity and amplification of acquired immune responses, has been considered as a potential candidate in particular to treat metastatic BC.

Areas covered: In this review, we summarize and discuss the recent development of therapeutic vaccines for BC, use of specific BC cellular antigens, antigen selection, and probable causes for their insufficient effectiveness.

Expert opinion: Despite development of several different BC vaccines strategies including protein/peptide, dendritic cell, and genetic vaccines, until now, no BC vaccine has been approved for clinical use. Most of the current BC vaccines themselves fail to bring clinical benefit to BC patients and are applied in combination with radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or targeted therapy. It is hoped that with advances in our knowledge about tumor microenvironment and the development of novel combination strategies, the tumor immunosuppressive mechanisms can be overcome and prolonged immunologic and effective antitumor response can be developed in patients.

Keywords: Cancer immunotherapy; DNA-based vaccine; breast cancer; dendritic cell vaccines; peptide-based vaccine.