Your immune system: On surveillance in the war against cancer
"We know that one function of our immune system is to detect and destroy pre-malignant cells before they can become cancer," said lead author Lance D. Miller, Ph.D., associate professor of cancer biology at Wake Forest Baptist. "However, sometimes the immune system becomes unresponsive to the presence of these cells and a tumor develops." This unresponsiveness can be temporary, and the immune system can remain alerted to the fact that there’s a problem. Immune cells can stand post along the borders of the tumor and even infiltrate the tumor core, where they may gain a better position for eventual attack. …