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Scientific News  Health care Other illnesses and advices ORAL SEX LINKED TO MOUTH CANCER
ORAL SEX LINKED TO MOUTH CANCER
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Oral cancer is rare but a tiny proportion
may be caused by a sexually transmitted virus (Image: DC Dept of Health) |
Oral sex has been linked to a tiny risk of mouth
cancer, an international team of scientists say.
Researchers had suspected that a sexually transmitted virus linked to cervical
cancer, the human papillomavirus (HPV), could also be associated with tumours in
the mouth.
Now researchers working for the International
Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, have provided more evidence,
publishing their results in the Journal
of the National Cancer Institute.
The scientists studied more than 1600 patients with oral cancer from Europe,
Canada, Australia, Cuba and the Sudan and compared them with more than 1700
healthy people.
They found that patients with oral cancer associated with a strain of HPV known
as HPV16 were three times more likely to report having had oral sex than those
without the virus strain.
HPV16 is also the most common strain associated with cervical cancer.
"The researchers think both cunnilingus and fellatio can infect people's
mouths," according to an article in New Scientist that reported the
research.
U.S. virologist Dr Raphael Viscidi from Johns
Hopkins University medical school worked on the study. He believed the
findings substantiate the link between HPV and oral cancer.
"This is a major study in terms of size," he said. "I think this
will convince people."
The risk of getting oral cancer is low and about one person in 10,000 develops
it.
About 75-90% of cases are caused by heavy drinking and smoking; the combination
of tobacco smoke and alcohol is thought to produce high levels of cancer causing
agents.
But scientists had been puzzled by a group of young people who developed oral
cancer.
"We have known for some time that there is a small but significant group of
people with oral cancer whose disease cannot be blamed on decades of smoking or
drinking, because they're too young," oral cancer specialist Professor
Newell Johnson of King's College London
told the magazine.
"In this group there must be another factor, and HPV and oral sex seems to
be one likely explanation. This study provides the strongest evidence yet that
this is the case."
The source of the given news and copyrights
belong to the ABC
Online News
Publishing date: March 2, 2004
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