Klin Onkol 1996; 9(6): 203-204.
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With virtually no clinical successes using tumor vaccines in the past, it is impressive that immunologists continue to work so ambitiously towards development of tumor vaccines, as was evident at the 2nd Tatras Immunolgy Conference, (The Molecular Determinants of Immunity), held in Jasna on September 27,1996. This ongoing interest in tumor vaccination can probably be explained by a steady increase in knowledge concerning the many factors regulating the specific immune response.
Mechanisms through which tumor cells evade the immune system are being discovered each year. Recent information regarding these evasion tactics was presented by R. Kiessling (Stockholm), and include i) induction of loss of the zeta chains of T cell receptors in tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL cells) and of the zeta chains of CD16 in natural killer cells, ii) downregulation of adhesion molecules, and iii) alteration of cytokine profiles, especially enhanced local production of the immunosuppressive cytokine IL-10.
Will any of these findings ever have an impact on clinical oncology in our lifetimes? It does not seem to be a practical approach to attempt IL-10 to restore the lost zeta chains to TIL cells, or the adhesion molecules to tumor cells. Production of IL-10 at the tumor site, though, may be a manipulatable phenomenon.
