Immune modulation and cancer

The concept that the immune system is involved in defence against cancer goes back nearly a hundred years. Despite increased sophistication in our analysis of the immune response it has proven difficult to demonstrate a powerful role of the immune system in either the prevention or treatment of cancer. Animal data has consistently and clearly shown that the immune system can identify and reject experimental tumours. In patients the data is more conflicting. The isolation of individual cytokines which stimulate specific components of the immune response and have a anti-cancer effect does suggest, however, that as we learn more about the interaction between immunity and cancer, novel methods for the diagnosis and therapy of cancer will be developed.