Cytokines in cancer therapy

Problems in the investigational study and clinical use of cancer immunotherapy

The last decade has witnessed a veritable explosion in the investigational study and clinical use of immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer. Although this is an exciting development, the promise of cancer immunotherapy has not yet been fulfilled. Why is there an apparent discrepancy between the theory of cancer immunotherapy and the actual results from clinical studies? Michael Osband and Susan Ross suggest that there are several basic problems with the clinical study and therapeutic use of immunotherapy that must be overcome before it can be considered a viable treatment for a broad range of tumors. The purpose of this article is to describe some of the more important of these problems.