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 1,256 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	239	19%
Japan	120	10%
United Kingdom	72	6%
Spain	52	4%
Canada	34	3%
Netherlands	24	2%
France	18	1%
Australia	17	1%
Germany	15	1%
Other	145	12%
Unknown	520	41%

Demographic breakdown

Type	Count	As %
Members of the public	909	72%
Scientists	232	18%
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals)	81	6%
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors)	34	3%

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 2,224 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country	Count	As %
United States	47	2%
Germany	24	1%
United Kingdom	21	<1%
France	9	<1%
Italy	6	<1%
Switzerland	6	<1%
Spain	5	<1%
Canada	5	<1%
Denmark	5	<1%
Other	52	2%
Unknown	2044	92%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status	Count	As %
Student > Ph. D. Student	565	25%
Researcher	550	25%
Student > Bachelor	227	10%
Student > Master	208	9%
Other	135	6%
Other	538	24%
Unknown	1	<1%

Readers by discipline	Count	As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences	829	37%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	429	19%
Medicine and Dentistry	384	17%
Unspecified	155	7%
Chemistry	57	3%
Other	369	17%
Unknown	1	<1%

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3063. 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 15 August 2019.

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#244

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Outputs from Science

#21

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Outputs of similar age

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Outputs of similar age from Science

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Altmetric has tracked 13,402,922 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 62,018 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 44.1. 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 1,058 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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