14 DAY TRIAL // This is a little bizarre: while cases of mouth cancers caused by tobacco and alcohol have being decreasing since 1982, due to their lower consume, a new culprit for this type of cancer is causing increasingly more victims: oral sex.
More specifically, a human papilloma virus (HPV), which can be transmitted through oral sex, causes tongue, mouth and throat cancers, besides cervical, penile and anal cancers. The number of this type of cancers has risen by 33% from 1973 to 2004, as found by a team led by Maura Gillison at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, US, in a research published in the "Journal of Clinical Oncology." The researchers used data recorded in the US National Cancer Institute registries, recording about 46,000 cases.
"What we do know is that the prevalence of HPV is high, particularly among young people and this shouldn't be a surprise given that, since the sexual revolution, people have been having more sexual partners," Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, told NewScientist.
"The rise was largest among young white males, suggesting this group is more likely to have oral sex at a younger age now than it was 20 years ago. It adds that further research on the role of race and sex, and oral sexual behavior, is needed," wrote the authors.
"What is not in doubt is the need to consider giving boys the HPV vaccine, to protect them from the disease," said Gillison. There is already a Merck vaccine targeting HPV strains responsible for cervical (uterus) cancer in young women and girls. The same viral types are also known to provoke oral, penile and anal cancers. The HPV16 strain is particularly aggressive. "We need to start having a discussion about those cancers other than cervical cancer that may be affected in a positive way by the vaccine," said Gillison.
About 7,000 Americans and 500,000 people worldwide experience oral cancer each year.