On January 2nd, the authoritative scientific journal Science published an article entitled “Cancer etiology. Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions”, by the mathematician Cristian Tomasetti and a well known cancer genomic expert, Bert Vogelstein, both from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.

The “shock” news, immediately accounted for by worldwide media, is that “bad luck” (defined as the random mutations of stem cells) is the main determinant of many types of cancer (the majority indeed, up to 2/3!) and that for these (among which melanoma and esophageal cancer), primary prevention measures are not likely to be very effective.

Among many reactions, a punctual and clarifying comment by Paolo Vineis, professor of epidemiology at Imperial College, London, the International Agency for Research on Cancer press release and, finally, the many science reporter's reflections, that give an overview of the different facets of the scientific dissemination, together with the American Institute for Cancer Research blog post.
Further sources of information are available at the Epidemiology & Prevention web page. 
 

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