We can have teeny tiny self-contained cancers throughout our body and not know it. We can have cancer that the body has effectively stopped. Small undetected tumors that start as cancer but never develop on or spread. This is not written to cause alarm, only to illuminate that cancer might be happening much more often than anyone normally suspects, and in many cases, the body is capable of protecting us from tumor growth and spread.

Skin moles may hold clues to treating cancer, is an excellent must-read article for anyone interested in understanding of how prevalent and self-contained cancer might be for many of us.

For example, moles are cancerous tumors that start but somehow stop, never to become anything other than a mole. As Gina Kolata explains in her article, "Each mole is a tumor of pigment cells that started on a path to cancer and then stopped. The cells do not divide again. A mole is an incipient cancer that halted in its tracks."

The intriguing phenomenon of moles and other small tumors in the body that never go on to amount to anything threatening are being studied by scientists because it appears these little tumors that start as cancer and stop have not received much attention in the past. Dr. David Fisher, the director of the melanoma program at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, states, "I would bet my last penny that our bodies are riddled with these things."

It gives the reader pause to consider how marvelous the body is at normally taking care of itself that if moles and little tumors are cancers contained. Understanding the mechanisms behind how a body makes that happen could open a wider door into effective cancer treatments and cure. Please read Skin moles may hold clues to treating cancer for more detail.