• Question: can someone have two different types of cancer at the same time?

    Asked by setbuddiesx to Iain, Jo, Leo on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Iain Moal

      Iain Moal answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Yes, they can.

    • Photo: Joanna Watson

      Joanna Watson answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Yes. There are two ways this can happen. A person could either have two completely separate cancers in different parts of the body that are not related to each other at all. More commonly people start with one cancer and as it advances it spreads to a different part of the body, like the liver, brain or lungs and a new ‘secondary’ cancer will grow there.

    • Photo: Leo Garcia

      Leo Garcia answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Yes – and this may happen when cancer spreads from where it formed to somewhere else in the body, in a process called metastasis. Or cancer can form in two different areas independently. As such, it could be many more than two!

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