Oral Cancer News

Source: Tampa Bay Online (www2.tbo.com)
Author: staff

Ten years ago, most of Brian Nussenbaum’s oral cancer patients were men older than 60 who used tobacco and drank heavily.

Today, his patients look different, as does the risky behavior that seems to be leading to their cancer.

Nussenbaum, an ear, nose and throat doctor at Washington University in St. Louis, estimates 70 percent of his cancer patients have tumors on the back of their tongues and tonsils caused by human papillomavirus-16. Most of those patients are between ages 45 and 55. About half are women.

And experts suspect that all of them – men and women – got the HPV from oral sex.

“We know now that 98 percent of cervical cancer is caused by HPV, and mostly HPV-16,” he says. “But no one talks about how you can also get mouth cancer from it.”

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center reported a link between HPV and these specific throat cancers in 2000. The increase in HPV oral cancer stems from a shift in sexual behaviors, combined with a dramatic decrease in the number of tonsillectomies performed. Cancer from the HPV virus often develops on the tonsils.

In a Johns Hopkins study, researchers concluded that people with HPV infections were 32 times more likely to develop oral cancer than those without HPV. These findings have ramifications for anyone who is sexually active.

Parents have another reason to think hard about whether they want their adolescent daughters, and perhaps even sons, vaccinated with Gardasil, a drug that helps protect against human papillomavirus. And even baby boomers who thought they had dodged the STD bullet, may not have after all.

Experts think the HPV lies dormant for years, perhaps decades, before causing the cancer. No one knows for how long because there’s so little data on the disease. The National Cancer Institute determined recently that the rate of oral cancer caused by HPV has risen steadily since 1973.