I'm finishing up an assignment for my pathophysiology class and am stuck on this one question:

 

Three patients are diagnosed with different types of cancer. One patient is a life-long smoker and has lung cancer, one has active Crohn disease and has colorectal cancer, and the other is a farmer with newly diagnosed melanoma. Other than the obvious thing, cancer, what do these individuals have in common?

 

The only thing that I can think of is that all three of these cancers are the result of carcinomas. Am I over thinking this question? I have a hard time believing that something so simple could be the answer.

 

Thanks for all your help!!!

 

I think you are correct that all three are epithelial cells carcinomas - but perhaps they are looking for a more aetiological guess. I would hazard that the connexion is the fact that these three different carcinomas have plausible/presumable external causes; smoking/crohns/xs uv exposure. But then my guess is, if anything, less technical and more basic than yours.