Forsaking Fortune: Luck and Its Limited Utility to Cancer Diagnosis

This paper interrogates the concept of luck in cancer diagnosis. I argue that while it might have some utility for individuals, at the clinical and research level, the concept impedes important prevention efforts and misdirects sources of blame in a cancer diagnosis. Such use, in fact, has the possibility of harming already vulnerable efforts at ameliorating social determinants of health and should therefore be eliminated from research and clinical contexts.