Vaccine Therapy in Advanced Melanoma – State of the Art

In the last decades a variety of melanoma antigens [2] have been characterized. Most of them are recognized by the immune system in form of peptides presented in the groove of the HLA class I molecule. The clinical application of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes expanded in vitro in the presence of interleukin (IL)-2 has resulted in an elimination of even large tumor volumes [3]. Although the exact effector mechanism of tumor rejections is unclear, cytotoxic CD8-positive T lymphocytes are considered to be the major effector mechanism against this tumor [4]. Therefore, modern immunotherapy aims to activate these cell populations by vaccination approaches [5].