Tejal Somvanshi
A strange medical case has people asking: Can you catch cancer from someone else? The short answer is no – cancer isn’t contagious like a cold or flu. But one unusual case from Germany shows a rare exception that happened during surgery.
Here’s what happened: A surgeon was removing a tumor from a patient’s belly when he accidentally cut his hand. The cut was cleaned right away, but five months later, the surgeon found a small bump where he had hurt himself.
Tests showed something surprising – the bump was cancer, and it was exactly the same type as his patient’s tumor. The cancer cells had moved from the patient into the surgeon’s cut during the operation.
Medical experts consider this type of case to be extremely rare. They explain that our bodies usually fight off and destroy any cells from another person. But in this case, the cancer cells somehow survived in the surgeon’s hand.
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The good news: Doctors removed the surgeon’s tumor, and he was cancer-free two years later. Sadly, the original patient died from other problems after his surgery.
Medical experts want everyone to know that cancer is not contagious in daily life. The only known cases of cancer passing between people happen in very special medical situations, like organ transplants or, in this case, a surgical accident.
“Normally, transplantation of allogeneic tissue from one person to another induces an immune response that leads to the rejection of the transplanted tissue,” the medical team reported in their findings.
For the public, the main takeaway is simple: You can safely support and care for loved ones with cancer without worry about catching it. The medical community continues to study this unusual case to learn more about how cancer cells behave.
