The Threat of Human Papillomavirus

"HPV is a virus that infects moist skin, namely oral and genital mucosa. The oral cavity is particularly susceptible, the tissue around the tonsils and the base of the tongue."
"The fact that we're seeing these things [mouth and throat cancers] now is a reflection of ... the changes in sexual mores of the '60s and '70s, which eventually brought oral sex to be part of people's lives."
"It takes a long time for exposure of an agent to eventually develop into cancer, so much of what began [then] is rolling out now in terms of an increased risk of cancer."
Dr. Eduardo Franco, head of oncology, McGill University, Montreal

Terry Patterson, 52, sits in his home in Waterloo, Ont. on Friday, Oct. 14, 2016. Patterson was 49 when he was diagnosed with a tumour on his tonsil caused by HPV. He is advocating for young people to get vaccinated against the virus. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Hannah Yoon

Dr. Franco has closely studied the prevalence of cancers caused by the human papillomavirus and has become a world-renowned expert on the pathogen. He suggests that research has pointed to the inclination of couples to engage in "deep kissing" and oral sex to find where HPV transmission leading to these cancers has emanated from. That inclination is recognized as the cause of infections which many years afterward, including decades, may appear as mouth and throat cancers.

The recently recognized rise in malignant tumours in the mouth and throat as a result of exposure to the human papillomavirus among men appears on track to surpass the rate of HPV-sourced cervical cancer in women, according to newly revealed statistics gathered by the Canadian Cancer Society. A rise of 56 percent in males and 17 percent in females in the years 1992 and 2012, affirms. Some 1,334 people diagnosed with HPV-linked oropharyngeal cancers appeared in 2012, the last year for which statistics are available. Of that number, 372 died as a result of the malignancies.

In 2016, projections are for 4,400 Canadians to be diagnosed with an HPV cancer; cervical, genital and anal cancers; the expectation being that of that number roughly 1,200 will die from the disease. There is an urgent need for people to be informed of these statistics. Mostly because the incidence of such cancers could be prevented entirely if school-age boys and girls both were to be inoculated against the most potentially lethal strains of HPV before becoming sexually active.

One person who has lent himself to spreading that message is a 52-year-old father of four children who, in the fall of 2013 realized he felt increasingly run down; throat sore, neck glands swollen. A growth in his left tonsil was confirmed to be malignant through a biopsy. His treatment consisted of 35 days of radiation five days a week for seven weeks, each session lasting 45 minutes, with the addition of chemotherapy meant to prevent any recurrence of the tumour.

"It was a nightmare", he said of the treatment conducted at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, that saved his life. He was informed just recently that he is now cancer-free. And he sees it as his obligation to help to impress upon people the need for children to be vaccinated against the dread diseases that take too many lives needlessly. "I don't want anyone to go through what I did", he emphasizes.

HPV causes:

• all cases of cervical cancers
• 25%–35% of oropharyngeal and oral cavity (mouth and throat) cancers
• 80%–90% of anal cancers
• 40% of vaginal and vulvar cancers
• 40%–50% of penile cancers