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Immunization - Deliberate stimulation of the host's immune response. Active immunization involves administration of antigens or immunologic adjuvants. Passive immunization involves administration of immune sera or lymphocytes or their extracts (e.g., transfer factor, immune RNA) or transplantation of immunocompetent cell producing tissue (thymus or bone marrow). |
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Immunosuppression - Deliberate prevention or diminution of the host's immune response. It may be nonspecific as in the administration of immunosuppressive agents (drugs or radiation) or by lymphocyte depletion or may be specific as in desensitization or the simultaneous administration of antigen and immunosuppressive drugs. |
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Radioimmunotherapy - Radiotherapy where cytotoxic radionuclides are linked to antibodies in order to deliver toxins directly to tumor targets. Therapy with targeted radiation rather than antibody-targeted toxins (IMMUNOTOXINS) has the advantage that adjacent tumor cells, which lack the appropriate antigenic determinants, can be destroyed by radiation cross-fire. Radioimmunotherapy is sometimes called targeted radiotherapy, but this latter term can also refer to radionuclides linked to non-immune molecules (see RADIOTHERAPY). |
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