Modeling the Dichotomy of the Immune Response to Cancer: Cytotoxic Effects and Tumor-Promoting Inflammation

Although the immune response is often regarded as acting to suppress tumor growth, it is now clear that it can be both stimulatory and inhibitory. The interplay between these competing influences has complex implications for tumor development, cancer dormancy, and immunotherapies. In fact, early immunotherapy failures were partly due to a lack in understanding of the nonlinear growth dynamics these competing immune actions may cause. To study this biological phenomenon theoretically, we construct a minimally parameterized framework that incorporates all aspects of the immune response. We combine the effects of all immune cell types, general principles of self-limited logistic growth, and the physical process of inflammation into one quantitative setting. Simulations suggest that while there are pro-tumor or antitumor immunogenic responses characterized by larger or smaller final tumor volumes, respectively, each response involves an initial period where tumor growth is stimulated beyond that of growth without an immune response. The mathematical description is non-identifiable which allows an ensemble of parameter sets to capture inherent biological variability in tumor growth that can significantly alter tumor–immune dynamics and thus treatment success rates. The ability of this model to predict non-intuitive yet clinically observed patterns of immunomodulated tumor growth suggests that it may provide a means to help classify patient response dynamics to aid identification of appropriate treatments exploiting immune response to improve tumor suppression, including the potential attainment of an immune-induced dormant state.