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In December 2007 the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) approved panitumumab (Vectibix) for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer. Panitumumab has a conditional approval as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with EGFR-expressing tumours with non-mutated (wild-type) K-ras genes after failure of standard chemotherapy regimens. This specific subgroup of patients showed a more favourable outcome in a controlled, open-label, randomized phase III study. Patients treated with panitumumab plus best supportive care had a significantly prolonged progression-free survival compared to patients receiving best supportive care alone.

Recent studies clearly prove the existence of cancer immunosurveillance and justify renewed hope for the development of effective vaccination therapies for solid tumors. The identification of tumor-associated antigens has provided researchers with promising targets for T cell-based immunotherapies. New monitoring techniques will facilitate the correlation of immunological effectiveness of vaccination strategies with clinical results. In order to acchieve greater immunological effectiveness, a tumor vaccine should incorporate both CD4+ and CD8+ epitopes. Adjuvants should be systematically tested for their potential to break immunological tolerance and mechanisms that enable cancer cells to escape from immunosurveillance should be further investigated. This approach will open new perspectives in the development of tumor vaccines for solid tumors. At the same time, future vaccination studies should include patients in earlier stages of their disease or in the adjuvant setting in order to avoid on overwhelming effect of mechanisms that help tumors to evade immunosurveillance.

Coagulase-negative staphylococci are important members of the normal aerobic microflora of human skin and mucous membranes. Normally they are not pathogenic for men. But the increase in patients with implanted plastic foreign bodies or intravascular catheters had led to a dramatic change. In these patients, coagulase-negative staphylococci are the predominant organisms causing septicemia. Special pathomechanisms are involved in the colonization of polymers by staphylococci leading to a "plastic infection". Intravascular catheters are also important factors in the origin of septicemia in premature neonates and in patients with malignant diseases, especially under cytostatic therapy. Premature or suppressed opsonophagocytosis mechanisms are responsible for the origin and maintainance of septicemia.

Attenuated and by treatment with gamma rays inactivated avian Pox viruses (PIND-AVI) stimulate in man and animals selectively the T-lymphocytes. In this way PIND-AVI helps to repair a reduced reactivity of lymphocytes damaged by cytostatic chemotherapy: The lymphocyte stimulation by phytohemagglutinin could be normalized. In immunodeficient patients PIND-AVI showed very good effects in the treatment of herpes Virus infections.