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Subscribe to RSSA sexually transmitted infection usually thought of in connection to cervical cancer is also tied to a five times greater risk of cancer of the vocal chords or voice box, a new report suggests.
Combining the results of 55 studies from the past two decades, Chinese researchers found 28 percent of people with laryngeal cancers had cancerous tissue that tested positive for human papillomavirus (HPV).
But that rate varied widely by study, from no throat cancer patients with HPV to 79 percent with the infection.
"We're finding that HPV appears to be linked to a number of squamous cell carcinomas of the head, neck and throat," said Dr. William Mendenhall, a radiation oncologist from the University of Florida in Gainesville who didn't participate in the analysis.
However, he told Reuters Health, "I think the risk of HPV on laryngeal cancer is probably relatively low. Most of the patients we see currently that come in with laryngeal cancer have a strong history of cigarette smoking, also heavy drinking."
Along with tobacco and alcohol, having a poor diet and exposure to certain chemicals can increase a person's risk of laryngeal and other head and neck cancers.
The American Cancer Society estimates 12,360 people will be diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in the United States in 2012 and that there will be 3,650 deaths from the disease.
Along with their larger review, researchers led by Dr. Xiangwei Li, from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking University Medical College in Beijing, analyzed 12 studies that compared cancerous and non-cancerous tissues from a total of 638 patients. They found the cancerous throat tissue had 5.4 times the odds of testing positive for HPV infection, compared to non-cancerous tissue.
The analysis was published last week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Mendenhall said that of all head and neck cancers, HPV seems to play the biggest role not in laryngeal cancer, but in cancer of the tonsils and back of the tongue.
However, he added, "the exposure is probably decades earlier. Someone who develops a base of tongue cancer when they're 50, they probably were exposed to the virus years before, in their teens or 20s."
At least half of sexually active people get HPV at some point in their lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the virus is usually cleared by the immune system. Only some of the 40-plus HPV strains have been tied to cancer.
Based on the current findings, it's difficult to know how many of the laryngeal cancers in the original studies were actually caused by the virus, researchers said.
But Mendenhall said extending HPV vaccination to boys and young men, as the CDC has recommended, "will hopefully reduce at least some of these HPV-related cancers."
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Abundant evidence of a dramatic increase in head and neck cancer incidence appeared by 2007, and the evidence showed incidence affected men disproportionately. Yet inexplicably Gardasil manufacturer Merck and the government institutions responsible for vaccine approval and recommendation - the FDA and the CDC - delayed inexplicably in the introduction and approval of Gardasil in men, for two years. This preventative treatment comes with an upper age limit for effectiveness. What does this fact show about the responsibility our public and private medical establishments take for men's health protection?
The upper age limit is indeed a bunch of bull. It's based on the nonsensical assumption that people above the age are no longer prone to getting infected. Because of it, I had to pay out of pocket to get vaccinated, despite being insured.
My first thought was that it was due to the increase of oral sex between men and women. Then after reading your post, dspw, I was convinced it was due to oral sex...between homosexual men who contacted the HPV during prior heterosexual experience! I could be wrong with my assertion, however it is plausible.
That's an unwarranted and dangerous assumption to make. There might exist a slightly higher rate among homosexuals and bisexuals, but this is totally irrelevant given that HPV is prevalent in heterosexuals too. Moreover, oral sex is hardly the sole culprit here as you're making it out to be. HPV transmits via genital sex too, of course.
Society is so nonchalant about oral sex it scares me. People seem to think it is a compromise of to going "all the way". Excuse me, but it is all the way. You can contract any other STD including HIV from it. If you would not have sex with that person, that is probably a good indicator that you should not have oral sex.
That's what happens when you eat them funky monkeys!!!
Do not put your trust in gardasil!! This is just another drug company's scam to test their drugs on the public. Gardasil should be tested for 10 to 15 years like the FDA used to make manufacturers do. Now it is released in a year or two and the public is the guinea pigs. They will pull it off the market in a few years because of some devaststing side effect that the company knew about before it was released. Why have so many drugs been recalled over the last few years? No company trials and research,test it on the public. Cheaper to keep the damage costs to the public tied up in court till most of the victims are dead. Gardasil was one of Rick Perry's cheerleading causes to pay back the big pharma company for all the money paid to his campaign fund. Never think a republican is doing anything for the good of the common man. Every action they take leads back to money and a rich "contributor".