40% cancers fueled by viruses – study

According to the findings of the new study, viruses could be fueling almost 40 percent of the cancers as against a mere 10-20 percent previously known, researchers say.

Strong virus links with medulloblastoma and skin cancer
While hepatitis B and C were already known to lead to liver cancer, the human papilloma virus (HPV) has long been implicated for causing cervical cancer. But in the latest trials based on the DNA analysis, researchers have found a viral link with medulloblastoma, the commonest form of childhood brain tumour.

Moreover, connections between Merkel cell carcinoma, an aggressive skin cancer, and a virus also surfaced in 2009.

“We anticipate in the next few decades that many additional human cancer viruses will be discovered and the mechanisms underlying viral oncogenesis (cancer creation) discovered,” an elated Ronit Sarid, a professor of virology at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, remarked.

The cancer vaccine
The discovery could potentially pave way for new vaccines that can help combat the deadly disease, researchers hope.

But until more studies that look into and unfold the working mechanism of the viruses are embarked, the cancer vaccine could remain a distant dream, researchers say.

“If we can understand how these viruses work we could prevent people from contracting them and even create therapies that use the patient's own immune system to destroy infected or cancerous cells,” Alan Rickinson, professor of cancer studies at Birmingham University, said.

“The process still confounds experts because viruses work by invading cells and making them produce more viruses. But this process then kills the cell which should mean it cannot become cancerous,” Rickinson said.

While the researchers are already working on the first theory that suggests that ‘cancer-causing viruses remain hidden in cells for years, preventing the cell from repairing mutations’, it could take a long time and mammoth investments before the cancer vaccines actually hit the market.