In about 5% of the cases there is no known causative agent, and it may be as broad as a genetic aberration or predisposition. Remember that at the end of the day all cancers are a genetic issue. Whether that is caused by an outside source or by something that you inherited from your grandparents, at this level becomes an area that will in our generation never be resolved. This disease has actually been researched a great deal. If someone develops any cancer from some outside source, asbestos like you suggest, those ties have not been made to oral cancer, as they would be such a small portion of the overall population of patients. The luck of the draw in life and your genetic code predisposes you to be susceptible to getting - or protected from getting - any given cancer or other disease. Remember also that your immune system becomes increasingly incompetent with age, and that its ability to recognize and destroy cells that have developed a dna anomaly declines.

Every day of your life you have cells that develop aberrations in them. Every day your immune system identifies and eliminates them. This is happening in all of us, all the time. DNA inconsistencies can happen without external stimuli, as billions of cells replicate and replace those destroyed by normal apoptosis, and even in healthy people not all replications are exact copies of the parent cell. Some of these "bad copies" survive in the process, and their daughter cells carry on that genetic error.

Last edited by Brian Hill; 08-22-2008 12:18 PM.

Brian, stage 4 oral cancer survivor. OCF Founder and Director. The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.