The routine methods used to treat oncological diseases have a number of drawbacks, including non-specific action and severe side effects for patients. Furthermore, tumor diseases are associated with a suppression of the immune system that often leads to the inefficiency of standard treatment methods. The development of novel immunotherapeutic approaches having specific antitumor action and that activate the immune system is of crucial importance. Vaccines based on dendritic cells (DCs) loaded with tumor antigens ex vivo that can activate antitumor cytotoxic T-cell responses stand out among different antitumor immunotherapeutic approaches. This review is focused on analyzing different methods of DC-based vaccine preparation and current research in antitumor DC-based vaccines using animal tumor models and in clinical trials.
Keywords: antitumor vaccines; clinical trials; delivery of tumor antigens; dendritic cells; murine tumor models.