ABSTRACT
High-dose chemotherapy achieves significant improvement in event free and overall survival. Novel targeted therapies are achieving responses in over 90% of newly diagnosed patients with one-third of these patients achieving complete or near-complete responses. However, patients still experience disease progression and curative outcomes are rare, prompting evaluation of innovative therapeutic interventions. Based on the success of allogeneic transplant in achieving long-term disease free survival, various vaccination strategies have been evaluated to maintain remissions achieved by conventional and novel agents. Development of successful vaccine strategy in MM has been directed at two aspects. First to develop a vaccine strategy able to specifically target MM cells with therapeutic efficacy; and second to improve the immune function in MM to allow sustained robust responses to immune-based intervention (1).
