What is dendritic cell vaccine therapy?
Dendritic cell vaccine therapy is designed to produce an immune response for fighting cancer and other diseases.
Dendritic cells are in charge of monitoring the body for pathogens, and therefore a key part of the immune system. Dendritic cells use threadlike tentacles to crawl through the body seeking out disease-causing substances, and direct lymph nodes to mount an attack through activation of various T cells.
Different processes and procedures are used to create and administer the dendritic cell vaccine therapy with the goal of anti-cancer activity such as some of the following.
- Removal of blood from a patient and the vaccine is created in a laboratory over several days.
- Patient's blood is withdrawn over several hours and circulated through a machine. This process collects necessary ingredients to create the vaccine and concurrently cleanses the blood.
- Vaccines are created with the patient's own blood. Some providers advocate that blood contains tumor markers believed to help in directing the dendritic cells to the cancer.
- Research suggests that vaccines need to be combined with an antigen. An antigen is any substance that antagonizes or stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies. Antibodies are proteins that fight antigens.
- Some vaccines are cultivated with a piece of the patient's tumor believed to serve as an antigen to direct the dendritic cells to the cancer.
- Dendritic cell vaccines may or may not be administered with other therapies. Different theories exist about what therapies might enhance vaccine efficacy.
- Some vaccines are administered with drugs such as interferon alpha and interferon gamma. Interferons are naturally occurring proteins that act as chemical messengers between cells and create an immune response.
What are the potential benefits of dendritic cell vaccine therapy?
The potential benefits of dendritic cell vaccine therapy include an immune response and potential anti-cancer activity. Studies continue to evaluate the efficacy of this therapeutic approach against cancer.
What is the history of dendritic cell vaccine therapy?
Henrich Peters, MD, of the University of Gottingen discovered how to isolate monocytes from dendritic cells and cultivate vaccines in the 1990s. Dr. Peters served as a consultant to the Institute of Tumor Therapy in Germany—one of the first clinics in the world to treat cancer patients with dendritic cell vaccine therapy.
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