Immune system found to induce tumour dormancy instead of kill: New line of attack

Researchers from Tubingen University Department of Dermatology writing in Cancer Cell have uncovered an entirely new understanding of how the immune system may control tumour development.

Until now it was strongly believed that the immune system controlled growth of tumours by killing cells. The researchers lead by Prof. Dr. Martin Röcken have now shown that immune responses can prevent tumour growth without killing tumour cells.

Using a model of endogenously growing tumours that develop as with many human tumours because of a defect in normal cell death they showed that the immune system can prevent growth without destroying cells:

Early treatment of developing tumours arrests tumour development at very early stages through a strictly cytokine mediated mechanism (signaling proteins mainly interferon).

They further noted that immune responses can not only induce tumour dormancy but also tumour growth: In the absence of either interferon or other tumour necrosis factors the immune response converts the signal from a ‘tumour protective’ to a ‘tumour promoting’ response.

The paper may give great hope for new lines of attack in the development of tumour vaccines. As tumour immune responses can induce tumour dormancy arresting tumours at an early stage or may even induce growth, adjusting the cytokine pattern by varying interferon or other necrosis factors yet attempted may help to prevent growth.