A new study suggests that some of the cancer-causing mutations are caused by bad luck.
Bert Vogelstein and Cristian Tomasetti from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center say that the causes of cancer are unavoidable. There are about two-thirds of mutations in human cancer caused by naturally occurring changes within the cell.
Vogelstein and Tomasetti studied how this natural occurrence appears. When a normal cell divides, it also makes mistakes when it replicates the DNA which results in a naturally occurring mutation.
When two or three of driver genes get mutated in the same cell, they can turn a healthy cell into a cancer cell. If the mutations are unnecessary, that's good luck. But when it occurs in a cancer driver gene, it's a bad luck, Vogelstein noted.
In the paper published in Science, the researchers explained how random errors are an inevitable part of cell division, how often caused by an environmental factor, or by heredity. They used a mathematical model that analyzed genome sequencing and epidemiological data for 32 types of cancer.
They found that 66 percent of the total mutations are bad luck, the 29 percent are due to environmental conditions, and the remaining five percent are caused by heredity. Vogelstein further added that there is nothing people can do to prevent cancer right now.
However, some scientists are not convinced that the study reveals the whole story of cancer. The results of the fingdings are not equally applicable to all kinds of cancer, and there still a lot of factors aligned for cancer to manifest.