The title of this book implies that the immunology of cancer has yielded information as to the chemical nature of one or more specific tumor antigens. The text, however, consists primarily of a brief and often-uncritical review of selections from the literature of cancer serology. Fibrin is listed as a "cancer-distinctive" substance, which it surely is not. A recently discovered mouse leukemia antigen is also described as a "cancer-distinctive antigen," whereas it is in fact an isoantigen commonly found in the thymus of normal mice. Much of the most exciting and significant current work in the immunology of cancer, in which the immunity appears to be mediated by cell-associated rather than humoral factors, is unaccountably omitted. The need for a book giving a comprehensive and critical treatment of the general subject of tumor antigens and tumor immunity has not been filled by the publication of this one.
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Chandler A. Stetson (1965) studied this question.