Tumor biology and environmental carcinogenesis

Abstract

Cancer is a genetic disease whose progression is driven by a series of accumulating genetic and epigenetic changes influenced by hereditary factors and the somatic environment. These changes result in individual cells acquiring a phenotype that provides a survival advantage for those cells over surrounding normal cells. Our understanding of the processes that occur in malignant cell transformation is increasing, with many discoveries in cancer cell biology having been made using childhood tumors as models. This chapter reviews the current understanding of the molecular events involved in tumorigenesis and the rare (in pediatric tumors) influences, where known, of environmental exposures in the etiology of childhood cancer.