Title:Cancer and Autoimmune Diseases as Two Sides of Chronic Inflammation
and the Method of Therapy
Volume: 24
Issue: 11
Author(s): Vladimir Rogovskii*
Affiliation:
- Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Radiobiology, Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University,
Moscow, Russia
Keywords:
Chronic inflammation, cancer, autoimmune disease, immune suppression, anti-inflammatory therapy, bystander activation, disease-modifying therapy.
Abstract: Chronic inflammation is associated with a prolonged increase in various inflammatory
factors. According to clinical data, it can be linked with both cancer and autoimmune diseases in
the same patients. This raises the critical question of how chronic inflammation relates to seemingly
opposing diseases - tumors, in which there is immunosuppression, and autoimmune diseases, in
which there is over-activation of the immune system. In this review, we consider chronic inflammation
as a prerequisite for both immune suppression and an increased likelihood of autoimmune
damage. We also discuss potential disease-modifying therapies targeting chronic inflammation,
which can be helpful for both cancer and autoimmunity. On the one hand, pro-inflammatory factors
persisting in the areas of chronic inflammation stimulate the production of anti-inflammatory
factors due to a negative feedback loop, eliciting immune suppression. On the other hand, chronic
inflammation can bring the baseline immunity closer to the threshold level required for triggering
an autoimmune response using the bystander activation of immune cells. Focusing on the role of
chronic inflammation in cancer and autoimmune diseases may open prospects for more intensive
drug discovery for chronic inflammation.