ABSTRACT
The immune system is a highly regulated network of specialized cells and molecules: any immune response is controlled by positive and negative feedbacks which either amplify or suppress the production and the activity of Immunocompetent effector cells. This chapter describes a model describing the interactions between tumor cells and Immunocompetent killer cells. Carcinogenesis or the interaction between a killer and its target can be studied at the single cell level. By contrast, the dynamics of tumor growth must be examined at the population level, because the onset of the various growth patterns appears as a multicellular property. Dormancy is particularly interesting, as it is possible that many human tumors go through a stage of dormancy before resuming growth. The chapter focuses on the tumor dynamical properties resulting from the kinetic interactions by which effector cells destroy cancer cells, rather than on the multiple immunoregulatory processes of the anti-tumor immune response.
