Current status of vaccination therapy for leukemias

Therapeutic vaccination has challenged immunologists and hematologists for more than two decades and has developed from early animal studies to phase III trials in some human malignancies. Acute and chronic leukemias are common diseases in the clinical practice but few vaccination protocols have found their way to phase I trials in leukemias. Therapeutic vaccination protocols share the goal of inducing or augmenting leukemia-specific immune responses in the tumor-bearing host in order to potentially achieve therapeutical benefit in these otherwise fatal diseases. Major interest has been drawn to the use of dendritic cell (DC-based immunotherapy protocols relying on the unique properties of these most powerful antigen-presenting cells. With the bcr-abl oncogene a target of specific immunotherapy has been determined in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), while there is a limited information on leukemia-specific tumor antigens in acute myelogenous and lymphoblastic leukemias. This review will focus on immunotherapy development in acute and chronic leukemias and will discuss published clinical trials in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and CML.