Natural Dendritic Cell Vaccines in Metastatic Melanoma Patients

Dendritic cells (DCs) are the professional antigen-presenting cells of the immune system. As such they are currently used in clinical vaccination protocols in cancer patients, and both immunological and clinical responses have been observed. Several subsets of dendritic cells have been characterized in the peripheral blood. One such subset is referred to as plasmacytoid dendritic cells (PDC), another as myeloid dendritic cells (myDC). To date PDC and myDC have not been evaluated for their capability to induce anti-tumor immune responses in patients. For this reason the investigators will perform a safety and efficacy study with PDC and myDC in stage IV melanoma patients.