ABSTRACT
Both active and passive immunotherapeutic approaches can be used for treatment of malignant diseases, including myeloma. Active immunotherapy might be effective in myeloma as evidenced by the graft versus myeloma (GvM) effect of allogeneic transplantation (see Chapter 17), and immunization has shown clinical benefit in hematological malignancies (e.g. non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia) as well as in solid tumors (e.g. colorectal carcinoma, melanoma). Moreover, the patient’s immune system might also spontaneously recognize myeloma cell-associated structures, such as the idiotypic protein and the cancer testis antigen sperm protein 17 (see later).
