Report for: Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions

Title	Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions
Published in	Science, January 2015
DOI	10.1126/science.1260825
Pubmed ID	25554788
Authors	Cristian Tomasetti, Bert Vogelstein
Abstract	Some tissue types give rise to human cancers millions of times more often than other tissue types. Although this has been recognized for more than a century, it has never been explained. Here, we show that the lifetime risk of cancers of many different types is strongly correlated (0.81) with the total number of divisions of the normal self-renewing cells maintaining that tissue's homeostasis. These results suggest that only a third of the variation in cancer risk among tissues is attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions. The majority is due to "bad luck," that is, random mutations arising during DNA replication in normal, noncancerous stem cells. This is important not only for understanding the disease but also for designing strategies to limit the mortality it causes.

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Twitter Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 1,170 tweeters who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.

Geographical breakdown

Country	Count	As %
United States	222	19%
Japan	119	10%
United Kingdom	67	6%
Spain	49	4%
Canada	27	2%
Netherlands	26	2%
France	19	2%
Germany	17	1%
Australia	14	1%
Other	141	12%
Unknown	469	40%

Demographic breakdown

Type	Count	As %
Members of the public	834	71%
Scientists	245	21%
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals)	64	5%
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors)	27	2%

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 2,726 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country	Count	As %
United States	44	2%
Germany	24	<1%
United Kingdom	18	<1%
France	10	<1%
Italy	6	<1%
Denmark	5	<1%
Canada	5	<1%
Japan	4	<1%
Switzerland	4	<1%
Other	42	2%
Unknown	2564	94%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status	Count	As %
Student > Ph. D. Student	643	24%
Researcher	616	23%
Student > Bachelor	298	11%
Student > Master	252	9%
Other	149	5%
Other	536	20%
Unknown	232	9%

Readers by discipline	Count	As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences	849	31%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	603	22%
Medicine and Dentistry	422	15%
Chemistry	66	2%
Computer Science	65	2%
Other	408	15%
Unknown	313	11%

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3015. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 June 2022.

All research outputs

#1,648

of 21,448,133 outputs

Outputs from Science

#102

of 76,429 outputs

Outputs of similar age

#12

of 343,820 outputs

Outputs of similar age from Science

of 1,059 outputs

Altmetric has tracked 21,448,133 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.

So far Altmetric has tracked 76,429 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 60.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.

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We're also able to compare this research output to 1,059 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.

Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions

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