Comments on: Origins of an infectious cancer

By: Dataflurry

Dataflurry — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:54:46 +0000

Wow, very interesting post. I didn’t know that the DNA itself accumulates mutations. Amazing how tumors affect animals, I personally have had 2 dogs with tumors.

By: iayork

iayork — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:57:45 +0000

The DNA itself accumulates mutations, so it’s a molecular clock. Especially with tumors the problem is calibrating the clock.

By: Paul Michaels

Paul Michaels — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:43:29 +0000

Is there some sort of chemical or DNA clock that tracks the mutations of the cancer through the years?

By: iayork

iayork — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:57:36 +0000

That’s a fascinating case that I’ve referred to a couple of times (for example, here), when talking about evidence for immune control of tumors. (For people who didn’t follow the link, it’s “Fatal Melanoma Transferred in a Donated Kidney 16 Years after Melanoma Surgery”; a kidney donor had a tumor, it was treated and completely controlled; 16 years later the kidney transplant recipient developed a tumor in the donor kidney, of donor origin; the implication is that the donor’s tumor was still present for 16 years but controlled by her immune system, and in the immune-suppressed recipient the tumor reactivated.)

I’m still looking for the case of a tumor transfered by needle-stick.

By: EH

EH — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:12:26 +0000

Wouldn’t speak so quickly about human tumors: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/348/6/567.

This case, of course, is gangbusters for tumor immunology nerds.

By: iayork

iayork — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:02:01 +0000

I’m told there’s at least one case of a surgeon who contracted a patient’s tumor via a needle stick, and that it’s written up in New England Journal of Medicine — but I haven’t turned up the article, and the note I carefully made with more details, I carefully misplaced five minutes later.

By: John Kelsey

John Kelsey — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:11:51 +0000

Aren’t there some rare cases of cancers being transmitted by organ donations or even needle sticks? (The organ donation transmission presumably works because you’re taking immunosuppressants that keep you from rejecting both the new organ and the new cancer, though.)