MSD Manual

Please confirm that you are not located inside the Russian Federation

honeypot link

Defenses Against Cancer

By

Robert Peter Gale

, MD, PhD, DSC(hc), Imperial College London

Reviewed/Revised Oct 2022 | Modified Oct 2023
VIEW PROFESSIONAL VERSION
GET THE QUICK FACTS
Topic Resources

After a cell becomes cancerous, the immune system Overview of the Immune System The immune system is designed to defend the body against foreign or dangerous invaders. Such invaders include Microorganisms (commonly called germs, such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi) Parasites... read more is often able to recognize it as abnormal and destroy it before it replicates or spreads. The cancerous cells may be completely eliminated, in which case the cancer never appears. Certain cancers are more likely to progress in people whose immune system is altered or impaired, as in people with AIDS, people receiving medications that suppress the immune system, people with certain autoimmune disorders Autoimmune Disorders An autoimmune disorder is a malfunction of the body's immune system that causes the body to attack its own tissues. What triggers an autoimmune disorder is not known. Symptoms vary depending... read more , and older people, in whom the immune system works less well than in younger people. Cancers that are more common with a weakened immune system include melanoma Melanoma Melanoma is a skin cancer that begins in the pigment-producing cells of the skin (melanocytes). Melanomas can begin on normal skin or in existing moles. They may be irregular, flat or raised... read more Melanoma , kidney cancer Kidney Cancer Most solid kidney tumors are cancerous, but purely fluid-filled tumors (cysts) generally are not. Almost all kidney cancer is renal cell carcinoma. Another kind of kidney cancer, Wilms tumor... read more , and lymphoma Overview of Lymphomas Lymphomas are cancers of lymphocytes, which reside in the lymphatic system and in blood-forming organs. Lymphomas are cancers of a specific type of white blood cells known as lymphocytes. These... read more Overview of Lymphomas . Doctors are not sure why certain other cancers, such as cancers of the lung, breast, prostate and colon, are not more common in people with a weakened immune system.

Immune Cells and T Cells
VIDEO

Tumor antigens

An antigen is a foreign substance recognized and targeted for destruction by the body’s immune system Overview of the Immune System The immune system is designed to defend the body against foreign or dangerous invaders. Such invaders include Microorganisms (commonly called germs, such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi) Parasites... read more . Antigens are found on the surface of all cells, but normally the immune system does not react to a person’s own cells. When a cell becomes cancerous, new antigens—unfamiliar to the immune system—appear on the cell’s surface. The immune system may regard these new antigens, called tumor antigens, as foreign and may be able to contain or destroy the cancerous cells. This is the mechanism by which the body destroys abnormal cells and is often able to destroy cancerous cells before they can become established. However, even a fully functioning immune system cannot always destroy all cancerous cells. And, once cancerous cells reproduce and form a large mass of cancerous cells (a cancerous tumor), the body’s immune system may be overwhelmed.

Certain tumor antigens can be detected with blood tests. These antigens are sometimes called tumor markers. Measurements of some of these tumor markers can be used to evaluate people’s response to treatment (see table ).

Immune checkpoints

Even when the immune system is functioning normally, cancer can escape the immune system’s protective surveillance.

One reason the immune system usually does not attack normal cells is that the surface of normals cells carries proteins that signal to circulating immune cells (T cells) that the cell bearing them is normal and should not be attacked. These are called checkpoint proteins. Sometimes cancer cells develop the ability to produce one or more of these checkpoint proteins and thus escape from attack. Newer types of cancer medications called checkpoint inhibitors can block the signal and allow the immune system to attack the cancer.

NOTE: This is the Consumer Version. DOCTORS: VIEW PROFESSIONAL VERSION
VIEW PROFESSIONAL VERSION
quiz link

Test your knowledge

Take a Quiz! 
iOS ANDROID
iOS ANDROID
iOS ANDROID
TOP