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Abstract
The intellectual property literature concerning novel cancer vaccine strategies for the period 2001 – 2003 is reviewed. More than 550 citations have been identified and the majority of the citations described herein involve the identification of potential new tumour-associated antigens and novel strategies for cancer vaccine formulations to enhance the immune response. Promising progress has been made during this period in the identification of new tumour-associated antigens, the use of cytokines, immunostimulatory oligodeoxynucleotides and heat-shock proteins as vaccine adjuvants and the refinement of dendritic cell-based immunotherapy and other vaccine formulation and immunisation strategies. In addition, encouraging results have been obtained from vaccination studies of animal tumour models and a large number of novel cancer vaccines are currently under development or in early stages of clinical evaluation. Although the availability of cancer vaccines for clinical use in patient management remains a challenge to the cancer research community, the potential of vaccination to become an important treatment option for cancer patients in the foreseeable future can be treated with cautious optimism.