Oral Sex = HPV Vaccine

"Many of the patients we are seeing have only had a few partners. You don't have to be promiscuous to get this cancer."
Dr. David Palma, radiation oncologist

"The HPV [throat cancer] epidemic will have tremendous implications for health-care resources. "These typically younger, healthier patients have a high chance of surviving their disease, and they will have to live with the toxicity of treatment for many decades."
Canadian research paper, published in the journal Current Oncology

The first direct evidence that the rate of throat cancers linked to human papillomavirus (HPV) is on the rise in Canada and will eventually pose a major burden to the health care system for years to come has resulted from new research. This distressingly dangerous trend appears to be linked to the increased incidence of oral sex.

Scientists point to the lacklustre uptake of the HPV vaccine as one of the problems associated with the increasing incidence.

Canadian studies recently released came to the conclusion that "oro-pharyngeal" cancers -- those occurring at the base of the tongue and tonsils -- generally associated with HPV have steadily risen. Up until the present, scientists were unable to demonstrate a link to HPV, however.

Now, though, researchers at London (Ontario's) Lawson Health Research Institute genetically analyzed tumour samples to detect alterations in the presence of the infection over time.

The discovery validated that the number of patients with tonsil cancer was closely linked to human papillomavirus, more than doubling between the mid-1990s and late 2000s. HPV proved to be present in just about three times as many of the most recent cancers. That risk rising with the number of sexual partners.

Anyone, however, who has oral sex is at risk, according to Dr. David Palma, co-author of the research.

Throat cancer numbers are expected to continue rising, and to eventually surpass in numbers the incidences of cervical cancer by 2020, said Dr. Palma. Those patients presenting with HPV-related throat tumours have a good chance of being cured. But the treatment results in severe side effects, ranging from hearing loss to trouble swallowing, along with prolonged use of a feeding tube.

Most commonly in the past, cancers of the head and neck have occurred in the elderly as a result of heavy smoking and drinking. Physicians began noting that younger people appeared to be contracting cancers at the back of the throat. HPV was suspected. And studies have confirmed the same link in the United States and Europe.

These cancer cases appear to strike men far more frequently than women. Changes in sexual behaviour beginning in the 1970s appears to have been the causative with greater numbers of couples practising oral sex. New research along with data collected in Europe now provides "quite compelling" evidence that the HPV virus is the culprit, researcher Tonia Forte, co-author of the Canadian Partnership Study, stated.

Robert Nuttall, head of cancer control policy at the Canadian Cancer Society remains to be convinced. "The numbers are quite small, and they do vary from year to year, so establishing a trend is not clear", he stated. Though he did repeat concerns stated by the London scientists calling for wider use of the two HPV vaccines.

Those two HPV vaccines, effective against strains of the virus causing cervical, oro-pharyngeal, anal, penile, vulva and vagina malignancies have not experienced a wide acceptance among the general at-risk population. Even among school-age girls where government has funded their shots, has seen an uptake as low as 50%

That will, in all likelihood, change, as it becomes increasingly evident to the public at large that the incidence of such cancers is on the rise, and they can take proactive steps to protect themselves through the use of those vaccines. The alternative is fairly grim.