The potential role of cytokines in cancer therapy

Abstract

For most non-lymphoid tumors, the standard therapeutic triad of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy appears to be approaching the limits of its potential for the successful eradication of advanced stages of neoplastic disease. Therefore, new approaches to therapy are continuously being sought, including investigations on the use of cytokines, which can be used to expand subpopulations of tumoricidal cells or to exert direct antitumor effects on the cell. Recently, genetic engineering techniques have allowed for the large-scale production of these molecules generated during the immune response. The broad spectrum of biologic activities displayed by cytokines has stimulated considerable interest in the oncology community because of their potential application as a new “fourth modality” of cancer treatment. Cytokines may (a) enhance the antitumor response(s) of the host through augmentation and restoration of effector mechanisms; (b) increase the host defenses against intercurrent infections by reversing myelosuppression or enhancing the function of antimicrobial effector cells; (c) improve tolerance of the host to damage by cytotoxic modalities of cancer treatment; (d) induce alterations in tumor cell membranes that render the cells more susceptible to treatment; or (e) arrest tumor cell growth by inducing maturation/differentiation.

Drugs can only repress symptoms. They cannot eradicate the disease. The true remedy for all diseases is nature’s remedy… Nature has provided, in the white corpuscles as we call them — a natural means of devouring and destroying all disease germs… Stimulate the phagocytes., they devour the disease, and the patient recovers — unless, of course, he’s too far gone. Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonnington in the “Doctor’s Dilemma” George Bernard Shaw, 1902