Eli5- Why does cancer predominantly affect organs rather than muscle?

Question

Why do you never hear of someone with calf cancer or bicep cancer but rather cancer affecting the organs or blood?

In: 287

Answer 1

Cancer of a muscle tends to be more common in kids. Kids are constantly growing, and there are more opportunities for things to go wrong during their development. A child’s brain grows the most between the ages of 0-2 years, which is why brain cancers are most common in kids of this age group. Bone cancers are more likely to develop when kids tend to have big growth spurts (like when they’re teens).

Muscle cancers are still rare to see even in the world of childhood cancers, but not unheard of.