Urologie pro praxi 1/2004
Základy imunologie nádorových onemocnění
BASICS OF IMMUNOLOGY OF TUMOROUS DISEASES Research of human’s organism immune system leads not only to its understanding as an obvious part of man’s physiology, but it also reveals processes, which, in their natural or pathological course, can protect or cause a number of pathological processes. Ability to cause, to modulate or to terminate an immune process can mean the influence on many diseases, which we can treat until now only limitedly. Tumorous diseases still belong among the most frequent cause of death in well-developed countries. It is obvious that tumour growth is out of control of immune system from a certain number of cells in population line so the growth and progression of tumour arise. Extent of cell population and sensitivity to individual (communication above all) parts of immune system are completely essential for the prognosis of tumorous disease. Contemporary local (surgery, radiotherapy) or systemic (chemotherapy, biological therapy) therapy has success in some malignancies (e. g. with an introduction of cis-platin and its derivatives are male germ-cell tumours curable also in high clinical stage), but there is still an amount of malignancies resistant to the systemic therapy (e. g. a renal carcinoma). May be right there is the understanding to immune processes a key to therapeutic success. Key words: malignant diseases, immune mechanisms, antitumour therapy.
