Radiation Therapy & Targeted Tumors

Cancer Drug Resistance & Cancer Vaccine

Cancer drug resistance is a complex phenomenon that is influenced by drug inactivation, drug target alteration, drug efflux, DNA damage repair, cell death inhibition, EMT, inherent cell heterogeneity, epigenetic effects, or any combination of these mechanisms.  Cancer progenitor cells are often drug resistant as well. These progenitor cells can persist in patients seemingly in remission, and they are able to remain stationary or migrate to other sites during metastasis. Thus, cancer progenitor cells can cause cancer relapse at the original tumor site or in distant organs. The next step in anticancer therapy development should target the elimination of such cancer progenitor cells. 

Vaccines or vaccinations are medicines that help the immune system to recognize and destroy the cancer cells. Most of the cancer vaccine work in a same way to treat the cancer. Cancer treatment vaccines are different from vaccines that work against the viruses. The following types of cancer vaccines are most commonly under investigation throughout the world:

• Antigen vaccines
• Whole cell vaccines
• Dendritic cell vaccines
• DNA vaccines
• Anti idiotype vaccines