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Nature Medicine 6, 252 - 253 (2000)
doi:10.1038/73082

Smallpox, polio and now a cancer vaccine?

Donald W. Kufe1

  1. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA .
    e-mail: Donald_Kufe@dfci.harvard.edu


Fusions of dendritic cells and renal carcinoma cells have been used as a vaccine in the effective and non-toxic treatment of patients with metastatic renal cancer. This approach may be applicable to other tumor types (pages 332–336).


Despite progress in the treatment of cancer with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, only incremental advances have been made in improving survival rates, particularly in patients with disseminated carcinomas of the breast, lung, prostate and kidney. Moreover, most cancer treatments are compromised by substantial toxicities.