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Here is interesting news for Lotharios who smoke and go down on their girlfriends. They are at greater risk of getting a rare mouth and throat cancer triggered by the human papilloma virus.
Hope you’re not among the 0.7 percent of men who will develop HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer, according to scientist reassures.
Luckily the risk is much lower among women who did not smoke, and those who had less than five oral sex partners in their lifetimes.
Among hundreds of different types of HPV only 12 can cause cancer. HPV 16 or 18 triggers most cervical cancer while HPV16 most throat cancer.
Oropharyngeal cancer is caused by performing oral sex, and its appeared at the back of the throat, base of the tongue, or tonsils.
The number of cases of oropharyngeal cancer approximately tripled in British men and doubled in British women between 1995 and 2011 but US scientists warned that by 2020 is predicted to overtake cervical cancer.
“Most people perform oral sex in their lives, and we found that oral infection with cancer-causing HPV was rare among women regardless of how many oral sex partners they had.” Professor Dr. Amber D’Souza said from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
“Among men who did not smoke, cancer-causing oral HPV was rare among everyone who had less than five oral sex partners, although the chances of having oral HPV infection did increase with number of oral sexual partners, and with smoking.” Professor D’Souza continued.
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to predict the risk of cancer from oral HPV infection analyzed behavior and medical records of 13,089 people aged 20 to 69 who had been tested for oral HPV infection.
The study show that women ages 20 to 69, had a frequency of infection of just over 1 percent, compared to 6 percent for men ages 20 to 69. While men ages 50 to 59 were most likely to have an infection at 8.1 percent of any age group.
Oral sex was clearly associated with a higher prevalence of infection, although the highest infection prevalence was seen only among men.
Smoking also was associated with higher oral HPV prevalence.
Co-author associate professor Dr. Carole Fakhry at the Johns Hopkins Department of Otolaryngology said: “Currently there are no tests that could be used for screening people for oropharyngeal cancer. Our research shows that identifying those who have oral HPV infection does not predict their future risk of cancer well and so screening based on detecting cancer-causing oral HPV infection would be challenging."
"However, we are carrying out further research of oral HPV infection in young healthy men to explore this further." Dr. Carole Fakhry said.
There are around 16,500 cases of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) every year in the USA and over 11,500 of these are HPV-related, meaning that around 70% of all OPSCC in the USA is HPV-related.
The study was published in the journal Annals of Oncology.
