Immune approaches to the therapy of colorectal cancer and melanoma have substantially
evolved over the past years, from treating patients with nonspecific immune stimulants to a
focus on the use of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) either by passive immune therapy with
antibodies targeted directly to tumor cells or by active immune therapy via vaccination with
tumor cells, tumor cell lysates, peptides, carbohydrates, gene constructs encoding proteins,
or anti-idiotype antibodies that mimic TAAs. We review the different immunotherapeutic …