The biological sense of cancer: a hypothesis

Background  

Most theories about cancer proposed during the last century share a common denominator: cancer is believed to be a biological nonsense for the organism in which it originates, since cancer cells are believed to be ones evading the rules that control normal cell proliferation and differentiation. In this essay, we have challenged this interpretation on the basis that, throughout the animal kingdom, cancer seems to arise only in injured organs and tissues that display lost or diminished regenerative ability.