• Question: What age can you get cancer

    Asked by to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 12 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by , , icecream19, .
    • Photo: Matthew Lam

      Matthew Lam answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      You can get cancer at any age but you are much more likely to get it if you are over 60.

      This is because cancer is an ageing disease, which means that as you get older your cells become weaker and more likely to become cancerous.

      There are also some types of brain and blood cancers which are more likely to affect children than adults.

    • Photo: Amar Joshi

      Amar Joshi answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      There is no age limit but it is much less likely for someone to get cancer from teenage years to middle age. This is because as we get older the bodies systems start to get worse. The body is quite good a stopping rogue cells turning into cancer, but these don’t work as well in older people.

      There are quite a few cancer which affect children when they are young and are triggered by growing and developing.

      But these are statistics for the population as a whole. Theoretically anyone can get cancer at any time.

    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      You can get cancer at any age but the older you get the more your risk of developing cancer increases.

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      cancer is generally thought of as a disease affecting those over the age of 60. But it can randomly occur in any one at any age. Some cancers are specific to certain age groups. rentinoblastomas are eye tumours that affect children under the age of 5, hodgkins lymphoma tends to affect men and women from the ages of 20-30. testicular cancers known as Teratomas usually affect young men of 15-35 years old. testicuar tumours known as Seminomas usually affect men of 25-55 years old. Breast cancer that is inherited via the BRCA mutations usally occurs in women under 40.

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