Vaccine therapy is a highly experimental treatment for melanoma. So it's only available in clinical trials at present.

Vaccine therapy is based on the fact that our body's defence system, the immune system, can sometimes recognise and kill cancer cells. Unfortunately our immune system doesn't always do this very well, allowing cancer to develop. The hope is that a vaccine can be developed that will help the immune system to recognise melanoma cells and stimulate the immune system to fight them.

To make a melanoma vaccine, cells are taken from the melanoma and grown in the laboratory. The cells are changed to make them more likely to stimulate a response by the immune system. Then they are treated with radiation so that they can't grow in the body. Sometimes other proteins are added to the vaccine to try to boost its effectiveness. After this the vaccine is ready to be used.

Vaccines are given as an injection under the skin. Usually, repeated doses of the vaccine are given for several weeks or months. Side effects tend to be mild. The most common side effect is soreness at the injection site. Sometimes people have flu-like symptoms such as tiredness and aching muscles.

Vaccines are being tested for melanoma in two ways:

• to try to reduce the chance of the melanoma coming back after surgery
• to try to control the growth of melanoma that has already spread.

There still isn't reliable proof that melanoma vaccines are an effective treatment. A few studies have seen tumours shrink in some people after treatment, but often the vaccine has no effect on the tumour. We don't know if the shrinkage in some people was due to the vaccine or because occasionally melanoma can improve for a time on its own without treatment.

There is a list of clinical trials for melanoma, including vaccine therapy trials, on our website.