Immune system driving cancers into dormant state A multinational team of researchers has shown for the first time that the immune system can stop the

" Scientists have been working for years to use the immune system to eradicate cancers, a technique known as immunotherapy. The new findings prove an alternate to this approach exists: When the cancer can't be killed with immune attacks, it may be possible to find ways to use the immune system to contain it. The results may also help explain why some tumours seem to suddenly stop growing and go into a lasting period of dormancy. 'Thanks to the animal model we have developed, scientists can now reproduce this condition of tumour dormancy in the laboratory and look directly at cancer cells being held in check by the immune system,' said Robert Schreiber, Ph.D, Alumni Professor of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis. 'That will allow us to see if we can model this state therapeutically,' he added. The study's authors call the cancer-immune system stalemate equilibrium. During equilibrium, the immune system both decreases the cancer's drive to replicate and kills some of the cancerous cells, but not quickly enough to eliminate or shrink the tumour. 'We may one day be"