They follow a controversial 2015 study published in Science by the same researchers at Johns Hopkins that looked just at cancers in the United States. That study, by Vogelstein and mathematician Cristian Tomasetti, asserted that random DNA mistakes accounted for a lot more of the risk of developing cancer than previously thought. The finding caused an outcry from cancer experts, who have traditionally held that most cancers were caused by preventable lifestyle and environmental factors or inherited genetic defects. Such mistakes are "a potent source of cancer mutations that historically have been scientifically undervalued," Tomasetti said in a statement. The new work offers the first estimate of what proportion of cancers are caused by these random mistakes.

Source: Fox News March 23, 2017 18:00 UTC