This was followed by the report in 1775 by British surgeon Percivall Pott that chimney sweeps carcinoma, a cancer of the scrotum, was a common disease among chimney sweeps. With the widespread use of the microscope in the 18th century, it was discovered that the cancer poison spread from the primary tumor through the lymph nodes to other sites ("metastasis"). This view of the disease was first formulated by the English surgeon Campbell De Morgan between 1871 and 1874. Society and culture
Although many diseases (such as heart failure) may have a worse prognosis than most cases of cancer, cancer is the subject of widespread fear and taboos. The euphemism of "a long illness" to describe cancers leading to death is still commonly used in obituaries, rather than naming the disease explicitly, reflecting an apparent stigma. Cancer is also euphemised as "the C-word"; Macmillan Cancer Support uses the term to try to lessen the fear around the disease. In Nigeria, one local name for cancer translates into English as "the disease that cannot be cured".
In 2015 the IARC reported that eating processed meat (e.g., bacon, ham, hot dogs, sausages) and, to a lesser degree, red meat was linked to some cancers.Dietary recommendations for cancer prevention typically include an emphasis on vegetables, fruit, whole grains and fish and an avoidance of processed and red meat (beef, pork, lamb), animal fats, pickled foods and refined carbohydrates. Medication
Medications can be used to prevent cancer in a few circumstances. In the general population, NSAIDs reduce the risk of colorectal cancer; however, due to cardiovascular and gastrointestinal side effects, they cause overall harm when used for prevention. Aspirin has been found to reduce the risk of death from cancer by about 7%. COX-2 inhibitors may decrease the rate of polyp formation in people with familial adenomatous polyposis; however, it is associated with the same adverse effects as NSAIDs. Daily use of tamoxifen or raloxifene reduce the risk of breast cancer in high-risk women. The benefit versus harm for 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor such as finasteride is not clear.Vitamin supplementation does not appear to be effective at preventing cancer. While low blood levels of vitamin D are correlated with increased cancer risk, whether this relationship is causal and vitamin D supplementation is protective is not determined. One 2014 review found that supplements had no significant effect on cancer risk.