This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 8:15 am and is filed under FYI. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This is Gina Kolata, writing in The New York Times.
Cancer cells and precancerous cells are so common that nearly everyone by middle age or old age is riddled with them, said Thea Tlsty, a professor of pathology at the University of California, San Francisco. That was discovered in autopsy studies of people who died of other causes, with no idea that they had cancer cells or precancerous cells. They did not have large tumors or symptoms of cancer. “The really interesting question,” Dr. Tlsty said, “is not so much why do we get cancer as why don’t we get cancer?”
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
This is actually very interesting. A novel (at least for me) way of thinking about cancer.
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
So the real question is not: Why do some people get cancer? It is: Why doesn’t everybody have cancer?
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:10 pm
It is scary to think everyone middle-age and above has cancer — their immune system just keeps it in check.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
[...] as we previously reported for cancer, the question is not: Why do some people get the flu? The question is: Why doesn’t everyone get [...]