Immunotherapy of cancer has always had believers; many attempts at successful treatment of malignant disease have been made and, overall, were unsuccessful in the end. The logic behind immunotherapy is sound: ?foreign intruders? (mostly proteins) are recognized by an evolutionary ancient defense system, and, neutralized. Our survival from attacks by microorganisms is based on this system and with a few exceptions, it works well. For several decades, the ?self? or ?not-selfness? of tumors has been a matter of debate: are tumor cells identical to the patient?s own, or are they different; and if they are different, are they sufficiently different to be recognized and fought by an immune response? There is now reasonable evidence that at least some tumors produce and contain specific antigens. Melanoma is such a tumor.
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