Cancer risk
Even if you have already been treated for cancer, reducing your risk factors may lower the chance of your cancer coming back.
You might also want to talk to your family members about reducing their cancer risk.
What are risk factors?
A risk factor is something that increases your chance of getting cancer.
Having a risk factor doesn't mean you will definitely develop cancer but it means you are more likely to get it than someone without the risk factor. For example, people who smoke cigarettes are much more likely to get lung cancer than those who don’t.
Risk factors for CUP
Different types of cancer are associated with different risk factors.
In cancer of unknown primary (CUP), the original type of cancer is not known because the primary site where it started cannot be found.
This makes it difficult to identify the risk factors for CUP. However, they are likely to be similar to some of the main risk factors for many other cancers, such as:
- increasing age
- a family history of cancer
- smoking
- being overweight or obese
- not doing enough physical activity.