The term cancer vaccine refers to a vaccine that either prevents infections with cancer-causing viruses, treats existing cancer or prevents the development of cancer in certain high risk individuals. (The ones that treat existing cancer are known as therapeutic cancer vaccines.)
Some types of cancer, such as cervical cancer and some liver cancers, are caused by viruses, and traditional vaccines against those viruses, such as HPV vaccine and Hepatitis B vaccine, will prevent those cancers. (These anti-viral vaccines are not further discussed in the rest of this article) Other cancers are to some extent caused by bacterial infections (e.g. stomach cancer and Helicobacter pylori) and traditional vaccines against cancer causing bacteria are also not currently discussed in this article.
Scientists have also been trying to develop vaccines against existing cancers. Some researchers believe that cancer cells routinely arise and are destroyed by the healthy immune system; cancer forms when the immune system fails to destroy them.
Read more about Cancer Vaccine: Method, Approved Therapeutic Vaccines, Desired Characteristics, Antigen Candidates, Hypothesized Problems
Famous quotes containing the word cancer:
“I wish more and more that health were studied half as much as disease is. Why, with all the endowment of research against cancer is no study made of those who are free from cancer? Why not inquire what foods they eat, what habits of body and mind they cultivate? And why never study animals in health and natural surroundings? why always sickened and in an environment of strangeness and artificiality?”
—Sarah N. Cleghorn (1976–1959)