Therapeutic Vaccines for Chronic Diseases appear to be a new tool in disease management and treatment of chronic diseases. It seems to be set apart from the vaccines typically constructed to offer immunity against future infections and, instead, constructs vaccines that should treat existing diseases by provoking the body's immune system to react against the illness and fight it. It is very useful in the treatment of chronic diseases like cancer or autoimmune diseases and even sometimes viral infections that are lifelong.
Therapeutic vaccines for cancer aim to teach the immune system to know what is proper cells and cancer cells so that only the broken cells will be marked for destruction by the body cells. Some therapeutic vaccines targeted certain proteins on cancer cells, which are easily recognized by the immune system in eliminating these cells without harming the healthy tissue. Some clinical trial results are optimistic based on therapeutic vaccines for certain cancer types, like prostate cancer and melanoma, so that patients' response to chemotherapy with immunotherapy has been enhanced.
Current research develops therapeutic vaccines against autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis or type 1 diabetes, these are conditions in which the immune system attacks a person's own cells with chronic damage to health. Therapeutic vaccines will have the capability of modulating the immune response by decreasing inflammation and the prevention of tissue damage.
Therapeutic vaccines in chronic viral infections include persistent HIV and hepatitis B infection. Such vaccines are being explored in areas where traditional treatments do not abate infection. Here, the vaccine would strengthen the body's immune system to suppress or eradicate these infections thereby providing new vistas for therapy for patients with limited treatment alternatives.
As the therapeutic vaccines advance, they mark a very important step in the management of chronic diseases, thus giving the patient an opportunity to lead more abundant lives. This is the promise of medicine for many chronic illness treatments.