Journal of Vaccine Research, 2025, Vol.15, No.1, 45-55 http://medscipublisher.com/index.php/jvr 45 Review and Progress Open Access Therapeutic Vaccines for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Current Progress and Future Directions Jianmin Liu Sinovac Biotech Co., Ltd., Haidian, 100193, Beijing, China Corresponding email: Jianminliu@sinovac.com Journal of Vaccine Research, 2025, Vol.15, No.1 doi: 10.5376/jvr.2025.15.0005 Received: 30 Dec., 2024 Accepted: 17 Feb., 2025 Published: 26 Feb., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Liu, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Liu J.M., 2025, Therapeutic vaccines for non-small cell lung cancer: current progress and future directions, Journal of Vaccine Research, 15(1): 45-55 (doi: 10.5376/jvr.2025.15.0005) Abstract This study explores the immune status of non-small cell lung cancer, as well as various tumor antigens that can be targeted. It also discusses therapeutic vaccines under development, such as those based on peptides, proteins, dendritic cells, nucleic acids, and whole cells. The clinical trial results are quite good. These vaccines have performed well in ensuring safety and activating immunity, especially when used in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors. However, due to the complexity and diversity of tumor conditions, the weak effect of vaccines in activating immunity, as well as technical and financial difficulties, the application of these vaccines in clinical practice has not been very smooth. Now there are some new approaches, such as customized neoantigen vaccines, new vaccine delivery methods, and the use of artificial intelligence to design vaccines, all of which have the potential to solve the above problems. Only when people from different fields keep cooperating can therapeutic vaccines play their maximum role in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. Keywords Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); Therapeutic cancer vaccines; Neoantigen; Immunotherapy; Tumor microenvironment 1 Introduction Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with both high incidence and mortality rates. Most patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage. At this point, treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy either have no effect or can only prolong the patient's life for a short period of time. Even with targeted therapy, the overall therapeutic effect is still not good, and many patients tend to relapse after treatment. Therefore, new treatment methods are particularly needed (Saavedra and Crombet, 2017; Socola et al., 2013; Gu et al., 2022; Garcia-Pardo et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2024). Since the advent of immunotherapy, especially immune checkpoint inhibitors, there has been new hope for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, and the treatment outcomes for some patients have improved. However, these therapies are only effective for a few people, and it is not common for them to be effective for a long time . Therapeutic vaccines are a promising active immunotherapy approach. They display substances related to tumors, prompting the human immune system to recognize and attack tumor cells. Unlike vaccines that prevent diseases, therapeutic vaccines are used to treat cancers that have already been contracted. They can help the human body develop a long-lasting immune memory and may also prevent the recurrence of cancer. With the advancement of immunological research and vaccine technology, coupled with the successful experience in the development of infectious disease vaccines, a variety of vaccines for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer have been continuously developed, such as peptide vaccines, protein vaccines, cell vaccines and neoantigen vaccines (Socola et al., 2013; Awad et al., 2022; Garcia-Pardo et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2024). This study will explore the research achievements of therapeutic vaccines for non-small cell lung cancer and their subsequent development trends. This study will also analyze the incidence of this type of cancer, point out the shortcomings of traditional treatment methods, and at the same time explain the immunological principles by which therapeutic vaccines work. This study will also review the recent and ongoing clinical trial results, analyze the current research predicaments and combination treatment plans, and explore new research fields such as
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNA==