List of Cancer Causing Viruses Types of Human Viruses that Lead to Cancer
The link between cancer causing viruses and the disease was already well-established even during the early 1950s. These human viruses are causing normal healthy cells to turn into abnormal cells by altering genetic materials in them.
There are two types of human viruses that cause cancer and they are:
HPV alters your cells by meddling with the proteins that suppress tumors. The meddling action causes your cells that are infected with the virus to proceed into a different stage of the cell cycle.
When this happens, the virus gene gets replicated, forcing the cell to be changed.
The HPV is a genital warts type of cancer causing human virus that attacks the cervix. In fact, scientists say that if you have the invasive type of cervical tumor, you certainly were infected with HPV before your diagnosis.
HPVs are sexually transmitted. Common genital HPV infections are as high as 40% among young women who are sexually active with different partners.
Common sense tells you that a step on prevention is really abstinence or monogamy as much as possible.
It is possible for you to get a high risk HPV infection and never develop tumors in the cervix because other factors still influence your chances of developing them.
If you smoke,the harmful effects of tobacco use and a long-term infection with the HPV may then give rise to cancer.
Epstein Barr Virus or EBV
EBV is another one of the known cancer causing viruses. It is associated with four types of tumors:
EBV is one of the common human viruses. Many people are infected with it particularly during childhood. In fact, 50% of us get the virus during our childhood.
If you have the infection after childhood, it would result to grandular fever but not necessarily to cancer.
EBV targets your B lymphocyte cells. But your killer T-cells are able to control the growth of the infected cells. This is why many people have one of the potentially dangerous cancer causing viruses all their lives and not develop the dreaded disease.
Here's the catch: Long-term infection with the EBV causes tumors to develop.
Infection with EBV may cause you to develop post-transplant lymphoma or PTL. The risk increases if you have undergone an organ transplant and are receiving drugs to suppress your T-cells to prevent the rejection of the transplanted organ.
Late-stage AIDS patients are also at a higher risk of developing PTL because their T-cells have been damaged by HIV infection.
EBV infection causes Burkitt lymphoma which is a subtype of B cell lymphoma. It usually affects children. This type of cancer is rare in the Western world but very common in sub-Saharan Africa and New Guinea.
Burkitt's lymphoma is a result of EBV infection and repeated attacks of malaria.
Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) is also linked to EBV. About 40% of HL cases in Western countries are EBV-positive. In fact, 4 out of 10 cases of HL in the U.K. seem to be related to EBV infection.
Naso-pharyngeal cancer (NPC) is another type of tumor that is connected to the EB Virus. The number of NPC cases are curiously much higher in Southeast Asia especially in Southern China.
It is thought that two other factors may be contributing to the high incidence of the disease and hindering its prevention:
the genetic make-up of the people living in this region; and
