title: Leveraging the activity of tumor vaccines with cytotoxic chemotherapy.
abstract: Engaging the power of the patient's own immune system to actively seek out and destroy transformed cells holds great promise for cancer therapy. Tumor vaccines offer the potential for preventing cancer in high-risk individuals, preventing disease relapse after diagnosis and initial therapy, and shifting the balance of the host-tumor interaction to mitigate the progression of advanced cancers. The therapeutic activity of tumor vaccines is limited by the sheer physical burden of the cancer itself, pathways of local immune tolerance and escape active within the tumor microenvironment, and superimposed potent systemic mechanisms of immune tolerance. In this review, we describe how cytotoxic chemotherapy can be integrated with tumor vaccines using unique doses and schedules to break down these barriers, releasing the full potential of the antitumor immune response to eradicate disease.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21231-1000, USA. emensle@jhmi.edu
authors.forename: Leisha A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Emens
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Jaffee
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000276:immunology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D004357:Drug Synergism; D006801:Humans; D007108:Immune Tolerance / Q000187:drug effects; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology* / Q000628:therapy*
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D019496:Cancer Vaccines