Perspectives for antitumor vaccines application

In this article, we reviewed the works devoted to one of the promising areas in the immunotherapy of oncological diseases — tumor-specific vaccines based on immunocompetent cells. The most promising, effective and safe methods of cellular vaccination against cancer are presented based on data from clinical trials for the period 2016–2023, which are sorted in the article by the origin of the active component into non-cellular (vaccines based on oncolytic viruses, bacteria, nucleic acids, peptides and in-situ) and cellular (dendritic, T-effector, natural killer cells) immunotherapeutic approaches. Cancer vaccines based on personalized neo-antigenic dendritic cells have promising anti-tumor effects in clinical practice. Dendritic-based vaccines have a number of advantages, one example being the ability to activate both innate and adaptive immunity, as well as to develop long-term immunological memory against recurrence of tumors. DCs are the most professional and consistent antigens and are more effective in activating resting T cells. The review provides the most up-to-date information on cancer vaccines, as well as an analysis of the types of cancer vaccines, using both local and international sources. The conclusion of this brief review is the wide variety of types of tumor-specific vaccines and their rapid improvement.