Avoidance of Cancer Cell Destruction by the Immune System

Recent advances in our understanding of biology and immunology related to cancer show that infiltrating immune cells and cytokines in the tumor microenvironment provide different functions that are tightly coupled to the evolution of oncological diseases, giving pace to the concept of immunoediting. Strategies aimed at interfering with the cross-talk between tumor cells and their cellular partners in the microenvironment have been considered in the development of new immunotherapies that target different cell components of the tumor microenvironment. Importantly, these novel therapies may be coupled, and boosted, with classical treatments. In this chapter, an attempt is made to summarize recent data on the clinical impact of the immune microenvironment in tumors, from preclinical research to the clinical scenario, taking into account that this new knowledge will probably translate into a paradigm shift in therapeutic approaches to cancer in the near future.