Cancer vaccine

This article is about therapeutic cancer vaccines. For preventive cancer vaccine, see Cancer immunoprevention.

A cancer vaccine, or oncovaccine, is a vaccine that either treats existing cancer or prevents development of cancer. Vaccines that treat existing cancer are known as therapeutic cancer vaccines or tumor antigen vaccines. Some of the vaccines are "autologous", being prepared from samples taken from the patient, and are specific to that patient.

The immune system normally destroys cancer cells in a process called immunosurveillance. However, cancers can adapt to evade the immune system. Tumors form when the immune system fails to destroy cancer cells and they are able to multiply.

Some types of cancer, such as cervical cancer and liver cancer, are caused by viruses (oncoviruses). Traditional vaccines against those viruses, such as the HPV vaccine and the hepatitis B vaccine, prevent those types of cancer. Other cancers are to some extent caused by bacterial infections (e.g. stomach cancer and Helicobacter pylori). Traditional vaccines against cancer-causing bacteria (oncobacteria) are not further discussed in this article.

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