That's exactly the point of such a large and broad study - to find commonalities based on the pattern of cancer signatures, rather than the ones we are paying attention to at this time (e.g., age, ethnicity, environment, exposure, diet, habits, genetics etc.) - it may point us in the right direction and allow much earlier diagnostics and better screening for potentially effected individuals based on DNA signatures (genetically predisposed from birth or due to "fixed" mutation) rather than grouping by broad "medieval" observational / statistical categories of "smoker," "red meat eater," "suntan/UV" etc.
Actually, unless you mean the viral mutation of genome, externally "the cause" is more commonly thought of as "inflammation", which may be caused by viruses, bacteria (e.g., H.pylori), radiation and other factors that may undermine individual immune systems from effectively dealing with it. BTW, id you look at CPTP, it specifically blocks cellular mechanism of inflammation.
Actually, the study is independent and differs from others in that it is a "macro" study, trying to "classify" common cancer "causes" scientifically based on DNA mutations signatures rather than ad hoc "environment" categories based on often flawed observations or even often fraudulent group biases (political, racial, dietetic, environmental etc.).
It already reduced "common cause" of more than 200 cancers down to 21 signatures, which may lead to better understanding and discovery of commonality and reduction of numbers and higher effectiveness of treatments. It may also happen that only a subset of these 21 signatures is relevant, further reducing the amount of effort needed for advancement of screening.
In addition (rather than "instead of"), this study is complementary to others in that it might significantly reduce the number of false assumptions and allow other scientists to deal with only certain genetically significant signatures.
Far from being [nearly] useless, this study may turn out to become a specific "reference" study, sort of Cancer Genome Project.
Serendipity and Eureka moments happen every day, even within the large "cold" prim scientific studies, only they are now based on [hopefully] better scientific knowledge and understanding. Count on it! :-)
Also take a look at the second article, within my first comment - probably a serendipitous development of someone taking a look at part of "junk DNA" and finding a possible cancer cure.
Can’t disagree with the things you said and, I don’t have any more specifics because everything I know comes from what I read. Thank you very much for taking the time to critique my comment; now no one can come away with any misunderstanding of what’s going on.
I did skim through everything in your post #2 before commenting. It would be a big time-saver if only we knew which 20% of an article to read to get 80% of the information. By the way, I pointed out what I considered irrelevant from another poster after reading enough to know what both articles are about, not as a result of missing something.
And to set the record straight on serendipity, I actually firmly believe almost everything we attribute to luck or accept as random are anything but.