[Immunological aspects of chemotherapy for bronchial carcinomas. (author's transl)]

Provided that immunoreactivity exists against cancer cells, there are a number of biologically and medically relevant phases and processes such as old age, genetic defects, postradiologic and postchemotherapeutic metabolism, which can be accompanied or followed by short-term and persistent, partial or subtotal immune deficiency states, respectively. It will depend on several factors, which are difficult to elucidate heretofore, whether the tumour will bypass the concequences of immunogenecity, i.e. the stimulation of tumour immunity. Some of these factors are being studied in experimental and immunoclinical test systems. The critical representation of this paper ought to reinforce investigations into the essential parameters as well as the perpetuation of well planned randomized prospective studies on the basis of immunoclinical methods.