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.

While I agree that it is important to find causes and thereby find means of prevention it is also important not to go nuts and just look for external factors.

Some people have better DNA repair and immune systems than others. Fact is also that DNA damage has a chance element to it. It may or may not happen and it may happen in one location or another where it may have dire consequences.
Even if you eliminate ALL external factors, admittedly a good thing! the possibility to get mutations and develop cancers will not be zero.

M

Ahh Brian just beat me to it!

NY10,

Sorry I came across as I did. I realize that you are trying to find out what may have caused your mom's OC so that you might help to prevent another recurrence. I am certainly no expert on causes, but I have never read anything that points to external carcinogens such as you are thinking about, causing OC.

I should have worded my response in such a way that it pointed to the fact that I was speaking about how I feel, as well as others that I have communicated with about this subject. I certainly didn't mean that you should not try to make things better for your mom in the future.

Jerry

NY10,
An article you might like to read about a study testing a new photodynamic laser treatment designed to eliminate precancerous Leukoplakia cells showed up today on the OCF RSS feed.

http://oralcancernews.org/wp/2008/08/zapping-oral-cancer/

I agree with David. As long as you do not obsess over trying to find out where this may have come from to a point that you are letting this question affect your daily life and possibly your good health. Trying to find the best possible answer to this is fine. But, you must also be able to eventually accept that there are some questions (and this very well is one of them) that you will need to accept as never being completly answered. In saying this. I believe that researching this question "where did it come from" can be beneficial in your understanding of the pathology, treatment and recovery of cancer. and understanding eventually too that there is still so much to learn and still not known.
Now I will share with you some of the information I have received from medical professionals in regards to the same question. My husbands symptoms and initial diagnosis are similar to your Mothers. It started with what appeared to be a line of leucoplakia on the left side of his tounge. the biopsy confirmed SCC. That was 01/05. His life style up to that was nothing that would have put him at risk for mouth cancer. (see below signature) Now let me go back further. Around 1999/2000 my husband was treated for postive skin cancer ( he is very fair and has lived a large portion of his life outside without sunblock.) on the RT side of his face. SCC (We did not remeber what kind until the oral cancer and asked for the records) They excised the area with clear margins. the Dr. also treated the rest of his face for any precancer cells with a cream that my husband applied for two weeks. It supposedly killed the bad cells and didn't harm to good. after that he was sent on his way with a word to return if he ever had anymore unusal spots. No one made the correlation at first. Not even when we questioned the connection with one of his oncology Dr.'s who said," no, totally different". Well actually thier not totally different. And it is a fact that skin SCC w/o treatment can spread to organs. SO the question really still remains.( the tounge is a muscle not an oragan) there is no definitive proof one way or the other and we will never know and are ok with that now. This experience has made me remember the prayer the Alcoholics use. The final sentence I believe goes. " And to accept the things I cannot change". I hope you can soon find the "calm within the storm" that we have found on our journey for answers. It will come. And I wish you and your Mother all the best.

Ms T,

I am curious about a cream that is supposed to "kill" bad cells. Do you know what it was?

Jerry

I'm sorry Jerry I don't. And wasn't with my husband when he was treated for the skin cancer on his face. So I only got the watered down version of what the Dr. said back then. My hubby explained that the Dr. said the cream would remove the precancer cells and not harm his skin or good cells.~shrug~. I do know that it made his face very red and raw looking. It looked painful but hubby said it didn't hurt just looked bad. I can ask our Dr.s now if they can find it in the records we requested from the Dr that treated him for the skin cancer.
we won't see our Dr's till Monday but I'll try to get back to you with an answer after that. BTW after the bright red raw look went away he's skin looked awesome!smooth and even toned. No blothces or any of the dark spots from too much sun remained.

Thanks, but it won't be necessary. I received a private message from Markus, our resident science expert and he filled me in with some links to a couple of products.

Jerry

I would also like to know the "why" for my cancer. It just makes sense to know all the different causes of OC. Maybe years down the road all will be known. Although, there are about 300 million people in the U.S. and only about 35 thousand people are inflicted with OC...maybe those numbers top out over 400 000 thousand worldwide. So how much money is actually thrown into OC research? I'm sure not as high as we think. Brian probably has an idea on the number(s).

Too bad there wasn't a vaccine that would just kill all cancers in the infant stage...Wishful thinking.

Research is sooo important...Science is detrimental to a better life. Great minds are out there working!

I believe the skin cream is called Aldara. It's not without major side effects, including death. I would use it with some precaution.