| Abstract: |
Checkpoint blockade immunotherapies have changed the face of medical oncology since the approval of ipilimumab to treat metastatic melanoma in 2011. The entry of immunotherapies into standard of care treatment for has heralded many translational studies attempting to identify which patients are most likely benefit from these treatments. Studies describing the importance of the immune system to the development and treatment of cancer have a long history, with moments of success overshadowed by challenges for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Perhaps the strongest evidence for the importance of the immune system to control of cancer lies in the epidemiology of cancer in immunosuppressed populations. The incidence of AIDS-defining illnesses associated with immunosuppression (Kaposi sarcoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and cervical cancer) have decreased dramatically in the United States since the widespread use of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), which largely restores immune function in the setting of viral suppression [1]. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019. |
