CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 25, 230-234, Copyright
© 1975 by American Cancer Society
Clustering of Cancer
Malcolm C. Pike Ph.D.1 and
Brian E. Henderson M.D.2
1 Professor of Community Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California.
2 Professor of Pathology, University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California.
At the present time there is no solid evidence that any human cancer has the characteristics of a communicable disease. If future rigidly controlled studies produce hard evidence of an infectious component to cancer, very difficult ethical problems in patient care could arise. One major problem will then be to determine whether the patient is infectious before or after diagnosis. Clearly, if he is only infective preclinically, a not unlikely situation, the patient is no longer any risk to others once his disease is diagnosed. No data are yet available on this most important aspect of the situation which has such serious implications for the patient.
