First Cooties, Now Brain Cancer

Kids may be spreading something besides ear infections. That’s the word from a new study that suggests that an infectious agent — maybe a virus — might be behind some forms of brain cancer in children. Essentially, this is another scary sign that there’s more than one kind of cancer — cervical cancer — that’s […]

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Kids may be spreading something besides ear infections. That's the word from a new study that suggests that an infectious agent -- maybe a virus -- might be behind some forms of brain cancer in children.

Essentially, this is another scary sign that there's more than one kind of cancer -- cervical cancer -- that's spread by a virus.

The study findings are a bit hard to figure out, since the results are mainly about the role that the number of siblings plays in brain cancer. But here's one interpretation:

...[the] infectious agent could be a type of polyoma virus. A smallstudy in 2002 found a common polyoma virus, known as JCV, in themajority of 20 samples taken from brain tumours. Polyoma viruses arefound in 90% of children but are not clearly associated with anyclinical illness in healthy people, says Altieri.

However,
the virus remains latent in the body throughout life and can bereactivated under certain circumstances. Some evidence from laboratorystudies suggest that these viruses have cancer-forming properties,
Altieri, says: "However, in humans they have never proven to becarcinogenic."

Sibling link to brain tumour risk revealed [New Scientist]