from PART III - ORGAN-SPECIFIC CANCERS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2010
IMMUNOTHERAPY
There is evidence to support the concept that the human immune system can be manipulated to elicit an immune response to cancer cells and, at least in some cases, lead to tumor regression (1). The goal of immune therapy is to identify cancer as targets for immune system destruction. The challenge is that tumors are not foreign, but self. Some tumors do have cell surface markers that are unique to tumors, are present in much larger numbers than on normal cells or are normally present only on fetal cells. Such differences are probably the products of normally unexpressed genes. In tumors of viral origin, viral antigens may be present on the cell surface. It is these differences that provide the rationale for cancer immune therapy.
RATIONALE FOR LOCAL IMMUNOTHERAPY OF LIVER METASTASES
There is considerable experience in the treatment of cancer with systemic cytokines; however, there are a number of reasons why local, rather than systemic, administration of cytokines should be considered. Cytokines are normally present at very low levels systemically, but high, non-physiologic levels are necessary for systemic therapy. Some cytokines delivered in this manner can induce severe toxicity. Tolerance is a major barrier to immunotherapy. Direct administration of immunostimulants may alter the local environment and break the immunotolerance created by the tumor cells. In addition, the ischemia-induced necrotic tumor cells from embolization with the concomitant delivery of immunostimulants supply activated antigen-presenting cells with tumor antigens, which may lead to the creation of an in situ cancer vaccine.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.