ESMO 2025 | What are the benefits of integrating cancer vaccines into clinical practice?
Ryan Sullivan, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, discusses the potential benefits of individualized neoantigen therapies and vaccines for melanoma, highlighting their ability to provide increased efficacy without a corresponding increase in autoimmune toxicity. Combined immune checkpoint blockade regimens, which are commonly used in the frontline, adjuvant, and neoadjuvant settings, can lead to a higher rate of immune-related adverse events, whereas individualized neoantigen therapies and vaccines do not appear to increase this risk. This interview took place at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2025 Congress in Berlin, Germany.
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Transcript
The advantage if it works is that you’d have a therapy that provides more efficacy and not at the cost of more autoimmune toxicity. So most of our regimens that we’re developing in the frontline setting of melanoma and attempting in the adjuvant setting for melanoma patients and even neoadjuvant setting are combined immune checkpoint blockade. Depending on what you’re giving with the anti-PD-1, which is really the scaffold of any regimen, you can have quite an increase in immune-related adverse events, which just complicate everything...
The advantage if it works is that you’d have a therapy that provides more efficacy and not at the cost of more autoimmune toxicity. So most of our regimens that we’re developing in the frontline setting of melanoma and attempting in the adjuvant setting for melanoma patients and even neoadjuvant setting are combined immune checkpoint blockade. Depending on what you’re giving with the anti-PD-1, which is really the scaffold of any regimen, you can have quite an increase in immune-related adverse events, which just complicate everything. And so the fact that individualized neoantigen therapies and vaccines don’t seem to increase the immune-related adverse event rate is a great advantage from a balancing risk-benefit ratio.
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