1 Min Read What Is Tumor Immunology?
July 6, 20261 Min Read How Does the Immune System Detects Cancer Cells? 2
July 6, 2026
Care Framework & Diagram
Cancer is not only a story of cells going out of control — it's the immune system's long surrender
1
Immune Surveillance
Happening right now
NK and T cells scan for cancer cells every day, without you ever noticing. Proof: transplant patients on immune-suppressing drugs have 3–5× higher cancer risk.
2
Immune Evasion
The cancer fights back
Cancer cells learn to go invisible (PD-L1) and even turn nearby immune cells into accomplices.
3
Immunotherapy
2018 Nobel Prize
Drugs that release the brakes on immune cells — starting with ipilimumab in 2011 — now treat over 50 cancer types.
Future directions
Personalized mRNA vaccines · CAR-T/CAR-NK therapy · Combination strategies
Frequently Asked Questions
Can immunotherapy and chemotherapy be used simultaneously?
Yes, and many clinical protocols use both in combination. Chemotherapy can kill cancer cells releasing tumor antigens ('immunogenic cell death'), helping activate the immune system's attack on tumors and forming synergistic effects with immune checkpoint inhibitors. The specific protocol depends on cancer type and individual patient situation. Combined chemotherapy + PD-1 inhibitors have become standard first-line treatment for multiple cancer types.
What are immunotherapy's side effects?
Immunotherapy's primary side effects are 'immune-related adverse events' (irAEs) — while the immune system is activated to combat tumors, it may also attack normal tissues, causing autoimmune-like symptoms: colitis, hepatitis, pneumonitis, rash, thyroiditis, etc. Most can be controlled with corticosteroids, but severe cases require stopping treatment. Compared to traditional chemotherapy, irAEs have completely different patterns and management strategies, requiring experienced oncologists.
Why do some people respond well to immunotherapy and others not at all?
Response is related to multiple factors: tumor mutation burden (TMB — more mutations, more tumor antigens), PD-L1 expression levels, degree of immune cell infiltration in tumor microenvironment ('hot tumor' vs 'cold tumor'), and patient's own immune system status. Biomarkers predicting response (including TMB, PD-L1, MSI status, etc.) are a current research priority.
What's the relationship between NK cell therapy and CAR-T?
Both are cellular immunotherapy but from different starting points. CAR-T takes patients' own T cells, engineers them in vitro, and reinfuses them — highly individualized, very costly, requiring three to four weeks of preparation. NK cell therapy (including CAR-NK) can use allogeneic NK cells from other donors, with potential to become 'off-the-shelf' treatment at lower cost and broader applicability.
What does tumor immunology research have to do with ordinary people's health?
Very directly. Tumor immunology's insights tell us that maintaining the immune system's surveillance capacity is one of the most fundamental tumor preventions. This means: adequate sleep (sleep deprivation significantly damages NK cell activity), regular exercise (enhances NK and T cell surveillance capacity), not smoking (tobacco weakens immune surveillance), controlling chronic inflammation (creates microenvironments favorable to tumor evasion) — all have real tumor prevention significance.