Klin Onkol 2000; 13(Speciál 2000): 34-36.
Rous (1911) was the first to demonstrate that cancer can be caused by infectious agents with his work on chicken sarcoma virus. Many infectious agents are recognised in last 20 years as causal or risk factors for a number of malignant diseases. Several viruses (HBV, HCV, EBV,HTLV,HIV, HPV), the bacterium (Helicobacter pylori) and several parasites (Schistosoma spp., Clonorchiasis) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of various human malignancies, either directly or indirectly. These
malignancies usually represent the late outcome of the infection. Co-factors, both external (environmental ) and internal (genetic and physiologic at the imunologic and molecular levels) also play important roles in patogenesis of malignancies. In this article we review the actual evidence for „causality“ with respect to infectious agents linked with cancer.
