Background: Solid tumor malignancies are a cause of mortality in adults, with growing prevalence in young adults. Chemotherapies in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors have been shown to induce responses in these tumors through T cell responses, however non-responders in the clinical setting have been observed.

Methods: PubMed searches were conducted with the keywords “Cancer vaccines”, “Personalized vaccines,” “tumor neoantigens” and “cancer immunotherapies.”

Results: Personalized neoantigen vaccines constructed from primarily DNA, RNA and peptides have been shown to generate CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, resulting in delay in tumor growth and tumor regression. Created from tumor specific antigens, they are unique to each patient. Experiments detecting for T cell responses and preclinical models have provided evidence for the safety, feasibility and clinical efficacy of personalized neoantigen vaccines and immune checkpoint inhibitor combination treatments.

Conclusion: Future research can be directed to developing personalized neoantigen vaccines-ICI combination treatments for treatment of cancer and hematologic malignancies.