Principles of Oncoimmunology

Abstract

The history of cancer research is marked by at least three phases that each are based on different methodologies and therapeutic strategies.

During the first phase that lasts from antiquity to the eighties of the twentieth century, cancer was considered as a cellular disease resulting from the invasion of tissues by abnormal cells. Hence, the main challenge consisted in excising the tumor with its margins to make sure that all cancer cells had been removed. In addition to mutilating surgical techniques, clinical oncologists have been applying cytotoxic agents to their patients, based on the consideration that proliferating cells had to be purged from the organism. Cancer drugs were identified by their capacity to kill cultured tumor cells in vitro and then administered to patients as “chemotherapies” at the maximum tolerated doses to obtain similar effects in vivo.