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01-01-2016 | Focussed Research Review

Developments in cancer vaccines for hepatocellular carcinoma

Authors: Luigi Buonaguro, HEPAVAC Consortium

Published in: Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy | Issue 1/2016

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for about 6 % of all new cancers diagnosed worldwide and represents one of the leading causes of cancer-related death globally in men and women, respectively. The overall prognosis for HCC patients is poor, especially in the majority of patients with more advanced stage of disease. Indeed, in such cases immunotherapeutic strategies may represent a novel and effective tool. A few immunotherapy trials conducted for HCC have provided divergent results, urging the scientific community to explore additional paths to improve efficacy of immunotherapeutic approaches. The “Cancer Vaccine development for Hepatocellular Carcinoma”—HEPAVAC Consortium has been funded by the EU within the FP7 with the goal of developing a novel therapeutic peptide-based cancer vaccine strategy for HCC including both “off-the-shelf” and personalized antigens. This will be one of the very few vaccine trials for HCC and the first multi-epitope, multi-target and multi-HLA allele therapeutic cancer vaccine for such a frequent and aggressive disease with a hitherto high unmet medical need. Feasibility, safety and biological efficacy will be evaluated in a randomized, controlled European multicenter phase I/II clinical trial.

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Title: Developments in cancer vaccines for hepatocellular carcinoma
Authors: Luigi Buonaguro
HEPAVAC Consortium
Publication date: 01-01-2016
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in: Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy / Issue 1/2016
Print ISSN: 0340-7004
Electronic ISSN: 1432-0851
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00262-015-1728-y

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