[Vaccinal cell therapy in melanoma]

Cell vaccination therapy in melanoma has now an around 15-year experience. Initially, the treatment was based on the use of autologous or allogeneic inactivated tumor cells. Today, new means become available, such as synthetic peptide tumor antigens, preparations of dendritic cells of various sorts and transfer of genes into vaccinating cells. In the protocols that have been published and that utilize dendritic cells or macrophages, about 10% of the patients show objective tumor responses. Improving the treatments requires choices among the numerous options now proposed. Pre-clinical investigations are designed to select the cell products to be tested in phase I, then II, clinical protocols. Later on, only phase-III randomized trials will confirm or not the efficacy of this new therapeutic approach.