Abstract
Identification of human melanoma antigens by various molecular biological and immunological techniques and evaluation of tumor reactive T cells in patients with the identified tumor antigen and HLA tetramer technology revealed several basic problems involved in immunological tumor rejection, including inhibitory environment in local tumor tissues and the induction of regulatory T cell. However, the recently improved immunotherapy, based on the results from this basic and clinical research, including active immunization with modified antigen peptides and recombinant virus, T cell adoptive transfer with lymphodepletive pretreatment, and administration of anti-CTLA-4 Ab, demonstrated better anti-tumor effects. Further improvement of immunotherapy is expected for patients with melanoma. [Skin Cancer (Japan) 2004; 19: 25-33]
