What infections cause cancer?
About 30% of malignant tumors develop due to biological carcinogens — viruses or bacteria.
Some pathogens break or transform the mechanism of cell growth and reproduction. Others create gaps in the immune system, reducing its protective function. Sometimes pathogens provoke the development of chronic inflammatory processes, which in the long term lead to the degeneration of healthy cells into malignant ones.
The spiral bacterium Helicobacter pylori provokes inflammation, which can turn into chronic gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcers.
Chronic helicobacter gastritis is considered a precancerous condition: under certain conditions, it leads to the formation of a stomach tumor. Thus, with helicobacter chronic gastritis, the epithelium of the stomach is damaged, regeneration processes are disrupted, mucosal atrophy occurs, that is, the death of cells that produce gastric juice and hydrochloric acid. Timely diagnosis and treatment of a helicobacter infection can prevent the development of a tumor.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) — a group of more than 200 related viruses. They are divided into viruses with high and low oncogenicity.
Most HPV infections do not cause cancer and manifest only as warts on the body. The immune system restrains the virus, which does not lead to serious pathologies. But HPV types with a high oncogenic risk — there are 14 of them in total — can lead to the development of oncological diseases. For example, almost all cases of cervical cancer are caused by the human papillomavirus.
Over the past 40 years, there has been a decrease in the incidence and mortality from cervical cancer in developed countries. The reasons are screening and vaccination.
Hepatitis B belongs to a group of DNA-containing viruses that infect the liver and can cause chronic hepatitis disease. The virus concentrates in the blood, saliva and other secretory body fluids.
Most often, infection occurs during childbirth: the virus is transmitted to the child during passage through the birth canal of the mother. Other ways of transmission of infection are the exchange of biological fluids (saliva, blood) during sex, damage and the use of needles that have been in contact with the blood of the vector of infection.
It is important to understand that infection with hepatitis B in infancy leads to chronic hepatitis in more than 90% of cases. While in adulthood, the disease develops into a chronic form only in 5% of cases.
Hepatitis C is an infectious liver disease caused by an RNA-containing virus of the same name. The disease can occur in an acute form or have a permanent character. Hepatitis C infection is one of the main causes of liver cancer. And the virus is transmitted in the same way as hepatitis B.
To date, hepatitis C is treatable with antiviral drugs. The positive prognosis, according to WHO, is more than 95%. There is no effective vaccine against hepatitis C yet.
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