Escape strategies and reasons for failure in the interaction between tumour cells and the immune system: how can we tilt the balance towards immune-mediated cancer control?

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Abstract
The last decade has witnessed an exponential increase in the attempts to demonstrate that adaptive immunity can effectively detect cancer cells and impair their growth invivo in cancer patients. However, clinical trials of immunotherapy with a broad array of immunisation strategies have depicted a rather disappointing scenario, suggesting that successful control of tumour growth by immunotherapeutic treatments may not be an easy task to achieve. The attention of tumour immunologists has thus been switched to the potential reasons of failure, and extensive efforts are being made in defining the cellular and molecular pathways interfering with the capacity of the immune system to develop powerful immunological reactions against tumour cells. Although many of these pathways have been well characterised in murine models, little and controversial information about their role in determining neoplastic progression in cancer patients is available. This d-iscrepancy at the moment represents one of the major limita...