Pathophysiology · Oncology · Week 3

What Causes Cancer: Hits, Exposure and Time

One damaged gene is almost never enough. A cell needs a stack of hits: the gas pedal jammed on, both brakes gone, the repair crew lost, the self destruct switch cut. Exposures raise the rate of hits. Time lets them pile up. Flip the exposures and drag the age, and watch the gene board fill and the odds curve bend.

The gene board five jobs, five hits

Each tile is a control gene doing its job. A tile turns red once a hit knocks it out. Cancer starts when the last one falls.

Odds by age same person, two lives

Gray is the same body with none of these exposures. Red is the body you built. The gap between them is what exposure bought.
Pick a targetThen stack the exposures.
Which cancer are we tracking
Other exposures

Live readout

Hits so far
1 of 5
Years exposed
0 years
Risk multiplier
1.0 times
Odds by this age
2 in 1000
Odds by age 80
10 in 1000
Flip something on and watch the curve move.
This is a teaching model. The shape of the curves and the size of each jump follow what large studies report, but every number here is rounded off, and no model can give one person their own odds.