ABSTRACT
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death, accounting for over 150,000 deaths per year in the United States alone. Cancer immunotherapy is a rapidly expanding experimental field that has made great progress in the last two decades based on the advances in immunology and molecular biology. The human immune system is composed of innate and adaptive immunity. Innate immunity is non–antigen-specific and consists of anatomical and physical barriers, phagocytic cells, and complement. The term vaccination originated from the injection of smallpox vaccine by Jenner in 1796, and it described a preparation that contains antigen in the form of killed, attenuated, or fragmented disease-causing organisms. Cancer immunotherapy is an expanding experimental field that has made great progress in the last two decades due to advances in immunology and molecular biology.
