Absolutely. You have 'rogue' cells that go on independent replication programs all the time. But there are a few checkpoints which are no-go if a cell passes

Absolutely. You have 'rogue' cells that go on independent replication programs all the time. But there are a few checkpoints which are no-go if a cell passes them - they are immediately forced to die. These include, short telomeres, lack of proper DNA repair, and ability to respond to induced-suicide signals. In order for an otherwise 'cancerous' cells to be a problem, it really has to have developed processes that ignore ALL of these (few) checkpoints. The chance that the particular mutation in that cell includes a mutation to overcome ALL of those hurdles simultaneously in a single cell is the chance you develop (a harmful) cancer. A change to nearly any other gene will cause one of those checkpoints to kick in and force the cell to die. The DNA damage checkpoint is interesting all the way through public health policy in 2 cases: 1) The BRCA gene is a DNA repair protein. Women with a mutated brca gene are missing one of those 3 checkpoints. 2) HPV (for which we have a complete vaccine) is of a type of virus that is generally destroyed by your DNA-repair machinery. However HPV, being evolutionary wily, has a specific mechanism to shut down your own DNA repair machinery that would otherwise catch the foreign invader. Hence, HPV 'causes cancer' by deliberately disabling one of those checkpoints.