Cancer Immunoediting: Elimination, Equilibrium, and Immune Escape in Solid Tumors

Emphasizing the dynamic processes between cancer and host immune system, the initially discovered concept of cancer immunosurveillance has been replaced by the current concept of cancer immunoediting consisting of three phases: elimination, equilibrium, and escape. Solid tumors composed of both cancer and host stromal cells are an example of how the three phases of cancer immunoediting functionally evolve, and how a tumor shaped by the host immune system gets a finally resistant phenotype. Elimination, equilibrium, and escape are described in this chapter in detail, including the role of immune surveillance, cancer dormancy, disruption of the antigen-presenting machinery, tumor-infiltrating immune cells, and resistance to apoptosis, as well as the function of tumor stroma, microvesicles, exosomes and inflammation.