Cancer immunology

Cancer immunology is an interdisciplinary branch of biology that is concerned with understanding the role of the immune system in the progression and development of cancer; the most well known application is cancer immunotherapy, which utilises the immune system as a treatment for cancer.

Cancer immunosurveillance and immunoediting is based on (i) protection against development of spontaneous and chemically induced tumors in animal systems and (ii) identification of targets for immune recognition of human cancer.

Cancer immunosurveillance is a theory formulated in 1957 by Burnet and Thomas, who proposed that lymphocytes act as sentinels in recognizing and eliminating continuously arising, nascent transformed cells. Cancer immunosurveillance appears to be an important host protection process that decreases cancer rates through inhibition of carcinogenesis and maintaining of regular cellular homeostasis. It has also been suggested that immunosurveillance primarily functions as a component of a more general process of cancer immunoediting.

[ Some of this section should move to Immunoediting ]

Immunoediting induces selection for certain tumour cells, which loose dominant tumour-specific antigens allowing for tumour progression. It has three main phases: elimination, equilibrium and escape.

The elimination phase consists of the following four phases:

The first phase of elimination involves the initiation of an antitumor immune response. Cells of the innate immune system recognize the presence of a growing tumor which has undergone stromal remodeling, causing local tissue damage. This is followed by the induction of inflammatory signals which is essential for recruiting cells of the innate immune system (e.g. natural killer cells, natural killer T cells, macrophages and dendritic cells) to the tumor site. During this phase, the infiltrating lymphocytes such as the natural killer cells and natural killer T cells are stimulated to produce IFN-gamma.

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