[Cancer vaccines: scientific bases and clinical developments]

More than 100 years ago, William Coley published the first report of tumor regression induced by immune system activation. Since that time, numerous clinical trials of cancer vaccines have been carried out. However, active immunotherapy has not yet become an established modality of cancer therapy. Recently, striking progress has been accomplished in both the understanding of antitumor immune response and the characterization of tumor rejection antigens in human species. This progress serves as a basis for the development of new cancer vaccines.