Immunobiology of cancers of the head and neck

The items concerning cancers of the head and neck have been presented, being the subject of interest of immunologists involved in the research of this particular field of tumor immunology. The attention was paid to etiopathogenesis of these tumors, generally considered as environmental ones. Various aspects of depression of immunity were discussed as a potential cause of unsatisfactory results of conventional treatment. The role of local (in situ) immunity has been underlined and its various defects in the cancers concerned such as down-regulation or absence of HLA antigens on tumor cells, depression of zeta chain of antigen receptor (TCR) of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL), production of immunosuppressive cytokines and others.
Some of phenotypic alterations in tumor cells have prognostic significance and can be detected by means of antibodies. The most important seems to be p53 protein, being product of mutated p53 gene. It can be traced in tumor cell nuclei in a high proportion of patient tumor samples (up to 60%). Other valuable prognostic agents include proliferation markers (PCNA, Ki-67) and also VEGF (angiogenesis promoting factor).
A variety of immunotherapeutic regimes have been tried, but no convincing results were obtained. Some patients however, have shown transient response to treatment. Gene therapy has risen great hopes. Its principle is to transfect genes coding predominantly various proteins participating in the immune response such as HLA antigens, cytokines or cell adhesion molecules into the cells involved. There is no yet promising results of this novel approach, but the method is still in a very early stage of clinical application.