Cancer vaccines are used only as a treatment after the cancer has been found in a patient. By injecting these antigens into the cancerous area of the patient, the immune system will produce an increased amount of antibodies or cytotoxic T lymphocytes, also known as killer T cells , to attack cancer cells that carry that specific antigen. Multiple antigens can be used in this type of vaccine to vary the immune system response. In some instances, some antibodies, called idiotype antibodies, act as antigens, triggering an immune response similar to that described above. In this case, the immune system will produce anti-idiotype antibodies to attack the idiotypes.
Dendritic cells break the antigens on the cancer cell surfaces into smaller pieces.
The dendritic cells then act as most-wanted posters for the immune system, displaying those antigen pieces to the killer T cells. To make a dendritic cell vaccine , scientists extract some of the patient's dendritic cells and use immune cell stimulants to reproduce large amounts of dendritic cells in the lab. These dendritic cells are then exposed to antigens from the patient's cancer cells. This combination of dendritic cells and antigens is then injected into the patient, and the dendritic cells work to program the T cells. Bits of DNA from the patient's cells are injected into the patient, which instructs the other cells to continuously produce certain antigens.