What is known about oxidative stress and immune response?
As a mechanism to compensate for immune over-activation, mediators of inflammation have immune suppressive properties. This is best illustrated in the immune suppression seen following immune hyperactivation such as in septic shock. Following the primary scepticemia, patients are systemically immune compromised due to circulating immune suppressive factors that are released in response to the inflammatory stress. This suppression is termed compensatory anti-inflammatory response syndrome (CARS) and is associated with many opportunistic infections and deactivation [48]. The clinical importance of CARS immune suppression is seen in that sepsis survivors show normal T-cell proliferation and IL-2 release, whereas those that succumb possess suppressed T cell responses [49]. What do CARS and cancer have in common? Interestingly immune suppressive mediators associated with CARS such as PGE2, TGF-b, and IL-10 are also associated with cancer-induced immune suppression [50]. The role of oxidativ
