Qadir Muhammad Imran
Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Bosan Road, Multan, Pakistan.
Crit Rev Eukaryot Gene Expr. 2018;28(1):13-15. doi: 10.1615/CritRevEukaryotGeneExpr.2018019561.
The idea that viruses may cause some cancers was first proposed almost a century ago. At the end of the last century, it was estimated that 15% of all human cancers were due to viruses. But it is postulated that "Viruses are the causative agents of cancer: 100% of cancer patients contain virus/es in their body which are responsible for the cancer." Cancer may be caused by viruses through one or more of three mechanisms. Some studies have opposed the idea, but in these studies, laboratory methods were not used to detect viruses. There is a need to use innovative laboratory techniques in search of a wide range of viruses to establish a direct correlation between cancer and a virus. In the near future, viruses will be isolated from all cancer patients as causative agent of that specific cancer.