Prospects and challenges for immunotherapy of ovarian cancer--what can we learn from the tumor microenvironment?

Although there has been a marked resurgence of optimism that tumor vaccination or active immunotherapy may hold the prospect of clinical benefit for ovarian cancer patients, this optimism has been tempered by an appreciation that ovarian cancer represents a paradigm for the art of immunological defense. The pathogenesis of ovarian cancer is characterized by the evolution of multiple immunosuppressive mechanisms in the tumor microenvironment, several of which correlate with increased morbidity and mortality in ovarian cancer patients. This issue of International Reviews of Immunology focuses on the immunology of ovarian cancer, with a particular emphasis on the role of antigen-presenting cells in shaping immunological stasis within the tumor microenvironment. An understanding of these mechanisms will likely guide the development of novel adjuvants to alleviate local immune suppression in support of clinically effective ovarian tumor vaccination.