July 21, 2009. Cancer and Infectious Diseases. Most advances in
the prevention of cancer are now coming from infectious disease groups.
It turns out that most cervical cancer comes from the virus that causes
genital warts. Stomach cancer comes from a bacteria. Liver cancer
comes from a virus.
This idea is not new - as early as 1998, researchers were noting the
trend in identifying infectious causes of cancer, as described in an
article in the
CDC's
journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases.
This trend can be seen in Nobel Prize awards since 2005. Five
individuals have received prizes for identifying infectious causes for
chronic diseases which are linked to cancer:
2005: Dr. Robin Warren and Dr. Barry Marshall for identifying a bacteria
called Helicobacter pylori, a cause of stomach cancer and stomach
ulcers.
2008: Dr. Francoise Barré-Sinoussi and Dr. Luc Montagnier from the
Pasteur Institute in France for discovering HIV, the virus that causes
AIDS, and also the cancer Kaposis Sarcoma. Incidentally, another
virus in the same family causes a
rare blood cancer.
2008: Dr. Harald zur Hausen from Germany for his work on the Human
Papilloma Virus (HPV) and linking it to cervical cancer, along with the
development of a vaccine which prevents both HPV infection and the
cancer.
Several cancers of the digestive system have been linked to viruses
as well, including liver cancer and pancreatic cancer.
