A virus known to cause cancer in animals has been discovered in cancerous human prostate cells. An American team of researchers which examined hundreds of normal and cancerous prostates found that 27% of the cancerous tissues contained a gammaretrovirus called XMRV, compared to only 6% of healthy samples. Most importantly, the team believes XMRV to be directly related to tumor-growth because viral proteins were found almost exclusively in the cancerous cells of infected prostates. Image: logan.fulcher - Flickr
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This is really interesting. Viruses seem to be implicated in more and more cancers, a lot of which seem to be in or related to sexual organs. Traditional STD screening may one day have to factor these in.
It does potentially bring up a whole battery of questions regarding the spread of infection and susceptibility, but it is worth noting that scientists still don't know whether the virus is sexually transmitted, whether it infects women, how prevalent it is in the general population, or whether it causes cancers in tissues other than the prostate.
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