THE direct descendants of a cancer that first afflicted a single wolf between 250 and 1000 years ago are still spreading from dog to dog all around the world. The contagious cells represent the oldest surviving cancer known to science.
Canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT) is transmitted directly between dogs, probably through sex, licking and biting. It was thought that a virus was responsible for spreading the cancer from one dog to the next, in a similar way to human papilloma virus, which lives in genital warts and spreads cervical cancer to women through sex. Now a genetic analysis has…
