4 ms·

Is it possible to get cancer in your hand or thigh? I'm sure phones are held in hands or pockets for longer durations than they're held up to heads.

• tzahola 8y ago
  Male infertility is rising in the developed world.
• ItsMe000001 8y ago
  You only get cancer in tissues with active cell division, such as the skin or epithelial tissue. For the hand that's the skin. Most cells in the body don't divide after your initial growth phase (all the way to adulthood). You are "produced" once and from then on there only is "maintenance", which includes growth of new cells only in tissues that absolutely require it throughout lifetime. Evolution turned it off in as many cells of an adult body as possible because cell division always is risky, especially with increasing (cell/tissue) age.
  • gnode 8y ago
    While cancer rates are often higher in cell types with higher division rates, there are many other risk factors. The increased incidence of skin cancer is due largely to exposure to mutagenic ionising radiation from the sun, which is absorbed readily by the skin. Microwave radiation is more deeply penetrating. Although I believe it is unlikely to cause cancer.
    • ItsMe000001 8y ago
      Yes of course. My point was merely binary, about what kinds of tissue can get cancer. I thought that was appropriate for a question starting with "Is it possible".
• Beltiras 8y ago
  Those tissues might not be as susceptible to damage by radiation, or have more corrective mechanisms to deal with the damage.