A risk factor is a characteristic trait, such as a person’s habit (e.g., smoking) or exposure to harmful environmental factors (ultraviolet radiation, chemical carcinogens) that makes a person more likely to develop cancer.
This connection is only one of the possible causes of the disease, so it should be distinguished from the causative factor.
What are the risk factors for malignant tumors?
Because cancer is a whole group of different diseases in terms of course and prognosis, there are specific risk factors for each type of malignancy, different from those for other cancers.
In 1981 the English scientists R. Doll and R. Peto the work on studying the main reasons of malignant neoplasms was published in which they have calculated the relative contribution of these reasons to cancer mortality.
Tobacco smoking 30%
Diet (excessive calories, animal fats, red meat and its products, insufficient consumption of fruits and vegetables) 35%
Infections (chronic hepatitis, human papilloma virus) 10%
Reproductive health and sexual hygiene 7%
Occupational hazards 4%
Alcohol 3%
Geophysical factors (excessive sun exposure) 3%
Environmental pollution 2%
Industrial waste 1%
Drugs and medical procedures 1%
According to researchers the most significant factor responsible for 25-40% of deaths from malignant neoplasms is smoking tobacco, while environmental pollution leads to only 2% of cancer deaths. This suggests that most cancers can be prevented by relatively simple measures, as described below.
