The notion of a standard colon cancer pathway remained the consensus view among scientists until researchers, armed with more data and powerful methods, began focusing on individual patients instead of averages. They found, to their surprise, that the standard pathway only accounted for 7 percent of actual cases of colon cancer. Instead, researchers discovered there were multiple forms of colon cancer, each with its own developmental pathway—pathways that had been concealed by scientists’ belief that there must be a standard pathway.
