How would it work?
The vaccination should be a lot in common with the classical vaccination against viral diseases such as measles , mumps or polio.
A common mechanism of action
Vaccination against viral diseases consists in the administration of attenuated viruses or certain parts of the virus that can not cause disease itself. However, their presence in the body, stimulates the immune system and it is then ready to cope with a truly malicious virus. Similarly, they would be dead vaccination with melanoma cells or their components (antigens). Vaccination patient should thus stimulate the immune system to fight with other tumor cells. Cells or antigens are usually mixed in with other ingredients to support the immune system as a whole and alert the appropriate response to it.
But there is a difference!
Unlike conventional vaccines, which are applied in order to prevent infectious disease, melanoma vaccine is intended only for ill patients, and is therefore a method of treatment rather than prevention. This method is developed primarily for patients with advanced disease, but due to the low toxicity could become very interesting for patients in lower stages of the disease.
The results so far
In recent clinical studies where the vaccine was administered to patients with advanced disease with normally ordained interleukin-2 (IL-2), was compared with administration of IL-2 alone to achieve the following results:
described large number of tumors, which reduce their size;
was recorded longer time interval until the reduction of the tumor again began to grow.
Of whether this therapeutic approach will help people with melanoma survive longer, we will have to wait. However, it is clear that this area of research is extremely interesting, and hopefully in the future will be very beneficial.
Source: Targeted léčba.cz