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Monitoring tumor antigen specific T-cell responses in cancer patients and phase I clinical trials of peptide-based vaccination

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Abstract

Numerous phase I and II clinical trials testing the safety and immunogenicity of various peptide vaccine formulations based on CTL-defined tumor antigens in cancer patients have been reported during the last 7 years. While specific T-cell responses can be detected in a variable fraction of immunized patients, an even smaller but significant fraction of these patients have objective tumor responses. Efficient therapeutic vaccination should aim at boosting naturally occurring antitumor T- and B-cell responses and at sustaining a large number of tumor antigen specific and fully functional effector T cells at tumor sites. Recent progress in our ability to quantitatively and qualitatively monitor tumor antigen specific CD8 T-cell responses will greatly help in making rapid progress in this field.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by funds from the NCCR Molecular Oncology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Divison of Clinical Onco-Immunology, Lausanne branch, University Hospital (CHUV), Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Pedro Romero & Daniel E. Speiser

  2. Lausanne Branch, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Epalinges, Switzerland

    Jean-Charles Cerottini

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  1. Pedro Romero
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  2. Jean-Charles Cerottini
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  3. Daniel E. Speiser
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Correspondence to Pedro Romero.

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This work was presented at the first Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Summer School, 8–13 September 2003, Ionian Village, Bartholomeio, Peloponnese, Greece.

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Romero, P., Cerottini, JC. & Speiser, D.E. Monitoring tumor antigen specific T-cell responses in cancer patients and phase I clinical trials of peptide-based vaccination. Cancer Immunol Immunother 53, 249–255 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00262-003-0473-9

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