AN OVERVIEW OF AETIOPATHOGENESIS AND PREVENTION OF INFECTIOUS CANCERS

Currently, the knowledge on the oncogenic behaviour exhibited by microbial agents is the result of long and laborious studies conducted over the years. It started with the liver fluke infection associated with bile duct carcinoma and bilharziasis with bladder cancer. Following this, multiple pathogens got implicated in carcinogenesis, including bacteria, many viruses, and even fungi. For some of these infections, the cancer-causal association has confirmatory evidence, but the data is limited for others. There is a need to understand the pathogenesis of these infectious cancers and the oncogenic mechanism of newly implicated infectious agents being added to the list of infectious cancer. Cancers arising out of infections are theoretically preventable either by vaccination or early treatment and careful drafting of public health policies can help to reduce the cancer burden. The concept of herd immunity in cancer prevention is new and emerging, but as it has an established role in preventing some infectious diseases, the same advantage can be conferred in the prevention of infectious cancers. Cancer research has a huge potential when it comes to cancer prevention, and the role of vaccination and herd immunity needs to be explored further.