Current Concepts of Tumor Immunology III. Immune Therapy

It is apparent that development of consistently effective methods of immunotherapy must await a more thorough understanding of the immune response to cancer. However, even those forms of immunotherapy which have been developed to date indicate a tremendous potential. It appears that immunotherapy may be most useful as an adjuvant to established forms of treatment. Surgery, radiation therapy and/or chemotherapy are used to remove all of the gross tumor, with immune therapy then employed to destroy the small foci of tumor which remain. As methods are developed which are effective in counteracting the immunosuppression of tumors, other means of immunotherapy may be found which are capable of destroying tumor cells while not affecting the adjacent normal tissue. Thus, the future of immune therapy holds great promise. As more is learned about the immune response to cancer, advances in therapy will certainly follow.