News and Politics | February 21, 2011 | 7 comments

Oral sex is now bigger cause of throat cancer than smoking

The Human Papilloma virus is now the main cause of throat cancer in people under 50, scientists have warned.

HPV is best best known as the cause of around 70 per cent of cervical cancers. Since 2008, girls have been vaccinated against the virus aged 12 and 13 in schools.

Now doctors are calling for boys to be vaccinated against HPV too in order to stop the spread of the disease.

Apart from causing cancer the virus can also cause warts, verrucas and other cancers.

Cancers of the mouth and oropharynx - the top of the throat - used to be mainly diagnosed in older men who drink or smoke. But increasingly, it is being seen in younger men.

Prof Maura Gillison of Ohio State University in Columbus said the sexually transmitted HPV was a bigger cause of some oral cancers than tobacco.

She said: 'What is most strongly linked to oral HPV infection is the number of sexual partners someone has had in their lifetimes, in particular the number of individuals on whom they have performed oral sex.
'The higher the number of partners that you’ve had, the greater the odds that you’d have an oral infection.'

In Britain the incidence of throat cancer is rising sharply while in the US the incidence of oral cancers linked to HPV have doubled in the last 20 years.

 

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1358845/Oral-sex-bigger-cause-throat-cancer-tobacco.html

  1. groups:
    News and Politics,   Science,   current cult,   Odd News,   3 more
  2. tags:
    Sex and Love,  Cancer,  HPV,  Human Papilloma Virus
  3.     
    |

7 comments // Oral sex is now bigger cause of throat cancer than smoking

sbacker
more from News and Politics:
from the community

top videos