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The standard therapies - chemotherapy, surgical intervention and radiotherapy - have made progress in the last decade and have resulted in a significant improvement in survival rates with some forms of cancer, but for the last 25 years the average five-year survival rate hovers round the 60% mark. Cancer immunotherapy is among the most hopeful new approaches in modern cancer therapy. The human immune system promptly fights off infectious diseases and develops lifetime resistance to them, but it fails to fight cancer successfully. Professor Ernest C. Borden, the Director of the Center for Cancer Drug Discovery & Development at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA sums up as follows: "The problem is that the immune systems of cancer patients react too weakly to tumors. Tumor cells resemble the body's own cells too closely." By the time cancer is diagnosed and traditional therapies are applied, individual tumor cells have already spread to other organs and result in the formation and spread of metastases. Metastases are the main cause of mortality in cancer. The main target of immunotherapy is therefore disseminated cancer cells, with the endeavor of preventing or delaying the formation of metastases. (Understanding Cancer of the Kidney)