Main description:

This book offers a state-of-the-art report on recent discoveries concerning viral, bacterial, and parasite infectious cancers. Cancer is one of the most common causes of death and diseases in human populations, and 15%-25% of human cancers in worldwide are considered to result from chronic infection by pathogens. Most oncology textbooks address genetic mutation, but not infectious agents such as viruses, bacteria and parasites. As such this book stimulates further research in the new area between cancers and chronic infection, and discusses the epidemiology and molecular biology of infectious causes of cancers. It also explores the prevention and treatment of infection-related cancers, and brings pathogenic research to the forefront in the never-ending endeavor to understand how pathogens maneuver and negotiate in a complex environment, including the micro/macro- environment of the human host. Further, it highlights the urgent need for a concerted program to develop vaccines and other diagnosis and interventions that will eventually help prevent and treat infectious cancers, and decrease their burden on human populations. It offers graduate students and researchers a comprehensive overview of the infectious causes of cancers.

Contents:

Overview of infectious causes of human cancers.- Hepatitis B virus-associated hepatocellular carcinomas.- Human papillomavirus-related cancers.- Merkel Cell Polyomavirus - a new DNA virus associated with human cancer.- Current progress in EBV-associated B-cell lymphomas.- EBV infection and glucose metabolism in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.- Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus: Epidemiology and Molecular Biology.- Hepatitis C Virus-associated cancers.- Human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 infection and adult T-cell leukemia.- Malignancies in HIV infected and AIDS patients.- Bacterial infection and associated cancers.- Parasite-Associated Cancers (Blood Flukes/Liver Flukes).- Prion Protein family contributes to tumorigenesis via multiple pathways.- Murine gammaherpesvirus 68: a small animal model for gammaherpesvirus-associated diseases.- Infection of KSHV and Interaction with HIV: the Bad Romance.- Interplay between microenvironmental abnormalities and infectious agents in tumorigenesis.