In 1966, 87-year-old Peyton Rous was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for research he had done in 1909. Rous found that sarcomas in hens could be transmitted to other fowl by injecting a submicroscopic agent that was extractable from them. This transmissible agent eventually became known as the Rous sarcoma virus and the laboratory findings gave rise to the virus theory of cancer causation.
At the time, Rous’ work was not believed, but over the ensuing decades, other examples of viruses that caused cancers in animals were found. Ultimately, he received belated recognition when he was awarded the Nobel prize.
Since the 1960’s, numerous infectious agents have been identified as causes of human malignancies. The implications of such discoveries for cancer prevention in particular are profound, because vaccines are probably the single most effective and powerful primary prevention that one can use in medicine. Their impact on infectious diseases and related morbidity and mortality in the U.S. are obvious to anyone.
We stand now in an era when vaccines will be able to make certain cancers disappear as they have done with smallpox and polio. Every child now is vaccinated against hepatitis B, a major cause of hepatocellular carcinoma. Vaccines for human papillomavirus will soon be widespread for the prevention of cervical and other anogenital cancers. Hopefully, other preventive vaccines will not be far behind.
In this issue of Cancer Prevention, we highlight the link between chronic infectious diseases and cancer, and thus the potential to develop preventive vaccines and anti-infectives to reduce the cancer burden. Peyton Rous himself developed tuberculosis as a medical student and had to take a year of rest. Nowadays, medication would have solved the problem easily. Perhaps one day soon we will have similar agents for the infectious agents of cancer.
The Editors
Andrew J. Dannenberg, M.D.
Henry R. Erle, MD-Roberts Family Professor of Medicine
Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Director of Cancer Center
The New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center
Co-Director, Cancer Prevention Program
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
Alfred I. Neugut, M.D., Ph.D.
Myron M. Studner Professor of Cancer Research
Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Associate Director for Population Sciences
Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
and Mailman School of Public Health
Co-Director, Cancer Prevention Program
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
