Immune responses of patients without cancer recurrence after a cancer vaccine over a long term

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The present study aimed to clarify the humoral and cellular immune responses of patients with cancer who experienced no recurrence over a long term after receiving a cancer vaccine. The immune kinetics were investigated in response to a personalized peptide vaccination (PPV) among 44 Japanese patients without an active tumor at entry to the vaccination: Lung adenocarcinoma (n=11); colon (n=18); and breast cancer (n=15) (9, 10, 12, 8 and 5 patients with stage I, II, III and IV recurrences, respectively). The patients' immunoglobulin G (IgG) and cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activities were measured using a multiplexed Luminex assay and an interferon-γ release assay, respectively. There were no severe adverse events related to the PPV other than a grade III injection site reaction. A potent boost in IgG or CTL at the end of the 1st vaccination cycle was observed in 77% of the patients (n=84). The IgG levels were sustained throughout the follow-up period, whereas the CTL levels declined and were transient. A total of 37 of the 44 patients (84%) had no recurrence, with a median follow-up of 67.6 months (interquartile range, 45.6-82.8 months). Overall, the PPV induced long-term humoral immunity with transient cellular immunity in the majority of patients with cancer without an active tumor at their entry to the PPV.