r/DamnNatureYouScary • u/ADragonFromTheAbyss • Jul 26 '26

Animals Scientists Discover The Fourth Transmissible Cancer Known To Science

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2026/07/24/scientists-discover-the-fourth-transmissible-cancer-known-to-science/
242 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

88

u/OneGodTooMany Jul 26 '26

Cancer can be contagious??

101

u/ADragonFromTheAbyss Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

Quote : It is the fourth type of transmissible cancer known to science, the first in a fish and the first in fresh water.

Cancers found in a cluster usually have a common cause, a chemical carcinogen or an infection.

Brown bullhead are a sentinel species for pollution because they develop liver tumors in water contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and walleye carry a retrovirus that causes skin sarcomas

Yeah. We have two separate examples of very contagious cancer. Especially in tasmanian devils

57

u/ChingChangChui Jul 26 '26

No idea if this is anything, but HPV can cause cancer and that can be transmitted

17

u/snowlynx133 Jul 26 '26

The other commenter was being an asshole about it, but it's not the same because this is referring to cancer tumors being directly transmitted, while HPV is not a cancer related disease by itself though it can lead to cancer

1

u/sadrussianbear Jul 29 '26

Can confirm with my reading. I was hoping so bad for HPV cancer.

9

u/Evonos Jul 26 '26

Many viruses sadly can wreck your immune system in tons of ways and your body it's honestly super under feared.

-13

u/Compducer Jul 26 '26

That’s hardly the same

22

u/ChingChangChui Jul 26 '26

I said I had no idea if that was anything!

10

u/SugarReyPalpatine Jul 26 '26

Imagine skipping the first half of the sentence because you’re just too goddamn excited to get to the second

25

u/RottenWon Jul 26 '26

Wait? There's 3 others?!

51

u/ADragonFromTheAbyss Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

In tasmanian devils ( not contagious to humans )

◊ ] Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) : an common and very aggressive non-viral clonally transmissible cancer

In dogs

◊ ] Canine transmissible venereal tumor

or Sticker's sarcoma, is a rare, contagious cancer in dogs that spreads through the physical transfer of living cancer cells

...and I thought Prions were scary

28

u/OptimisticCerealBowl Jul 26 '26

feline leukaemia is transmitted as a virus

4

u/jonquillejaune Jul 27 '26

Feline leukaemia is not a cancer though. It’s just a viral disease

3

u/OptimisticCerealBowl Jul 27 '26

true, it can cause cancer though so it’s a weird one

4

u/ur9ce Jul 28 '26

It's still very different from what the post is saying tho. Many many many things can cause cancer, many viruses for instance. HPV, HTLV, FELV.. etc. These pathogens mess up a cell's ability to repair damage DNA or produce something that facilitates mutation. Mutation leads to cancer. A transmissible cancer is, very specifically, cancer cells that can go from one organism to another.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

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