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Hide and seek

Immune surveillance

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 6, pages S8–S9 (2006)Cite this article

Paul Ehrlich thought so. In 1909, he suggested that, thanks to the immune system, tumour development was usually suppressed.

Yet, attempts to target tumours by immunotherapy have been less successful than the Ehrlich hypothesis might predict. Richmond Prehn and Joan Main, in 1957, showed that tumours induced by chemical carcinogens in mice could stimulate tumour-specific responses that were able to reject those same tumours on challenge. They concluded that tumour immunity was induced by antigens unique to the chemically-induced tumour, but found that spontaneously arising tumours were not rejected when tested in the same experimental manner.

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  1. Senior Editor, Nature Medicine,

    Alison Farrell

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  1. Alison Farrell
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Farrell, A. Hide and seek. Nat Rev Cancer 6 (Suppl 1), S8–S9 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc1845

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