During the past few decades, the advances in cancer immunotherapy have revived interest in the potential use of vaccines for the malignant tumor treatment. Tumor-associated antigens, which are abnormally expressed by tumor cells, are of decisive importance in the development of anticancer vaccines. Through the stimulation of immunological memory, therapeutic anticancer vaccines can result in long-term remission or healing patients. Therapeutic anticancer vaccines due to the potential safety, specificity and duration of effect can become an alternative to or increase the effectiveness of existing immunotherapies. This article presents data on the tumor antigen structure, characteristics of anticancer vaccines and the results of studies on the clinical efficacy of anticancer vaccines.