Risk factors and biomarkers of life-threatening cancers (CARF)

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 Risk factors for cancer occurrence and for cancer death

Cancers affecting the same organ are no longer considered as a single disease entity. The wisdom that risk factors for cancer occurrence would be the same as for the risk for aggressive cancer or of cancer death is not correct. For instance, reproductive factors have a strong influence on the risk of breast cancer but little influence on the risk of breast cancer death [2]. Adiposity is associated with reduced breast cancer risk in premenopausal women. However, the risk of death from breast cancer in premenopausal women increases with adiposity [3]. High fertility is associated with reduced risk of breast cancer. However, women giving birth in their 40s have become increasingly common, and breast cancer occurring in the first 2 years after childbirth is known to be more lethal [4]. Another example is smoking in prostate cancer. If smoking is not a risk factor for prostate cancer occurrence, it seems to be associated with the occurrence of fatal prostate cancer [5].

The search for hereditary, lifestyle, and environmental factors that would be involved in the occurrence of potentially life-threatening cancers has really started only after 2000, mainly because of the longstanding false impression that risk factors for cancer occurrence and for cancer death were similar.....