Immunologic aspects of gynecologic cancer
Abstract
All vertebrates have a defense mechanism, the immune defense system, that protects them from disease-causing microorganisms. Its deliberate exploitation has conquered many infectious diseases and has been a major achievement of medical science in preventing suffering and saving lives. At the beginning of this century, hope was held that dissimilarities between normal and neoplastic cells could be demonstrated by immunologic methods and that vaccination against cancer might become possible. When it was recognized that the many claims of tumor=specific antigenicity were based on experiments in which an immunity to normal alloantigens, rather than tumor-specific antigens, had been demonstrated, the field of tumor immunology came into disrepute. The work of Gross in 1943 and Prehn and Main in 1957 rekindled interest in tumor immunology. Many contributions have advanced the concept of tumor immunology. They are the following: (1) an abundant supply of highly inbred (syngeneic) animals; (2) extensive work on experimental transplantable tumors; (3) an understanding of the mechanism causing rejection of grafted normal and cancerous tissues in animals; (4) identification of the function of the humoral and cell-mediated mechanisms follow...Continue Reading
References
Foetal antigens and their role in the diagnosis and clinical management of human neoplasms: a review
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