Immune-mediated dormancy: an equilibrium with cancer.
This brief review discusses the role of the immune system in tumor development, covering a history of cancer immunity and a summary of the concept of cancer immunoediting, including its three phases: elimination, equilibrium, and escape. The latter half of this review then focuses specifically on the equilibrium phase, making note of previous work, suggesting that immunity might maintain cancer in a dormant state, and concluding with a description of a tractable mouse model unequivocally demonstrating that immunity can indeed hold preformed cancer in check. These findings form a framework for future studies aimed at validating immune-mediated cancer dormancy in humans with the hopes of devising new, immunotherapeutic strategies to treat established cancer.
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Victoria, Australia.
Michele W L
MW
Teng
Jeremy B
JB
Swann
Catherine M
CM
Koebel
Robert D
RD
Schreiber
Mark J
MJ
Smyth
D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D007107:Immune System; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000276:immunology; D018664:Interleukin-12 / Q000276:immunology; D051379:Mice; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology*; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic / Q000276:immunology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D019139:Tumor Escape / Q000276:immunology*
D018664:Interleukin-12; D007371:Interferon-gamma