Does cancer have anything to do with bad luck?

I, TOO, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, with no family history of the disease and never having had HRT treatment (Letters). Last year, I suffered severe abdominal pains and my GP sent me for an MRI scan, which showed a tumour on my pancreas. This required an operation to remove most of this organ, carried out at the Royal Free Hospital in London, which I cannot praise highly enough. I’m on the road to recovery. I wasn’t overweight, have never smoked or drunk alcohol. I believe I was just unfortunate — but I’m very grateful to our much-criticised NHS.

WENDY TOMLIN, Holmer Green, Bucks. CANCER isn’t just ‘bad luck’ (Letters). Breast cancer cases have risen from 25,000 a year in the Eighties to more than 50,000 a year in the UK now. Pollutants can cause oestrogen-mimicking chemicals, which are thought to be a cause of the rise in hormonal cancers. One pesticide (lindane) caused breast cancer and is now banned in many Western countries, but until the Nineties many people were exposed to it. Breast Cancer UK documents the environmental causes of breast cancer. Blood tests found that everyone tested in Britain had several man-made toxic chemicals in their blood. These were from fireretardant chemicals, pesticides and chemicals in beauty products. Benzene, which is found in petrol, is proven to cause cancer but is widely used by industry. Professor Andreas Kortenkamp of Brunel University points out that the use of a range of commonly used chemicals which can interfere with the human system must be reduced. He said: ‘We won’t be able to reduce cancer without addressing preventable causes.’

A. WILLS, Ruislip, Middx. IF THE BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire has survived cancer (Mail) good for her, but I’ve had to watch my sister die of cancer, so I don’t particularly care about one lucky survivor grinning at me from the pages of my newspaper.

MICHAEL MARTIN, Ipswich.