Study of Autoimmune Serologic Reactions to Ocular Melanoma

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Abstract
Immunologic aspects of human cancer have been of intermittent interest for several decades, and the Immunologic approach to the study of malignant disease has been regarded alternately with optimism and skepticism. Recently, autoimmune responses to specific tumor antigens in patients with malignant neoplasms have been investigated by several groups of workers. For example, in 1958 Grace and Kondo reported local inflammatory reactions surrounding tumors in eight patiients.1 Sera from these eight patients gave positive complement fixation reactions with alcoholic extracts of the malignant tissue. Graham and Graham have used the complement fixation test to demonstrate the presence of circulating antibodies in 12 of 48 patients with malignant disease.2 In a later study, they prepared autogenous vaccines from tumors of 232 patients in the hope of increasing resistance to malignant tumors.3 Failure to show local reaction to the vaccine was regarded as an unfavorable clinical sign, apparently indicative