What are the risk factors and causes of childhood cancer?
A risk factor is anything that changes your chance of getting a disease such as cancer. Different cancers have different risk factors. Lifestyle-related risks are thought to be the main factors that affect cancer risk in adults. Examples include the effect of unhealthy diets, not enough exercise, and habits like smoking and drinking alcohol. But lifestyle-related risk factors have little or no effect on childhood cancer. Cancer is caused by a mutation (change) in a gene. Over the past few years, scientists have made great progress in understanding how certain changes in a person’s DNA can cause cells of the body to become cancer. DNA carries the instructions for nearly everything our cells do. For instance, we usually look like our parents because they are the source of our DNA. But DNA affects more than how we look. It also affects our risks for developing certain diseases, including some kinds of cancer. When children are born with mutated DNA that was inherited from parents, the mut
