Treatment of tumors

especially the malignant tumors

is a world-class medical problem and still plagues clinicians and medical scientists a lot nowadays.Moxibustion therapy has been used in the treatment of tumors in clinic practice for many years and the related mechanism researches have achieved a lot of achievements.In the present paper

we reviewed researches on moxibustion treatment for tumor from the self-regulation of the immune system in patients and animal models.Outcomes display that moxibustion therapy has an action in resisting tumors by 1)regulating innate immune defensive function and enhancing adaptive immunity(by up-regulating activities of natural killer[NK]cells

and phagocytic function of macrophages)

2)stimulating cellular immunity(by increasing the ratio of CD4

+

/CD8+/CD8

+

lymphocyte transformation rate

etc.)

and B lymphocyte-mediated humoral immunity(via regulating contents of IgG

IgA

IgM

etc.)

3)modulating levels of cytokines as interleukins

interferons

tumor necrosis factor superfamily colony stimulating factor

chemokine growth factor

vascular endothelial growth factor

VEGF

etc.

4)regulating expression of many related proteins and genes

and 5)regulating related hormones

neurotransmitters

intracellular kinases signaling

etc.

and other immune-related components.