Antitumour immune response and cancer vaccination: the critical role of dendritic cells

Increasing the capacity of the immune system to mediate tumour regression has been a major goal in tumour immunology. Progress towards this goal has been recently aided by the identification of immunogenic cancer antigens and by a better understanding of the mechanisms of T-cell immune response and tumour escape. A rare antigen-presenting cell--the dendritic cell (DC)--appears to be the key to these mechanisms. The possibility of generating these cells in vitro from blood precursors has initiated a new era in cancer immunotherapy. Using DC as a cancer vaccine adjuvant has led to reports of measurable immune responses, and, in a few cases, to complete disease responses in patients with B-cell lymphoma and melanoma.