Oral cancer sneaks up

Source: well.blogs.nytimes.com Author: Donald G. McNeail Jr. and Anahad O'Connor The actor Michael Douglas has done for throat cancer what Rock Hudson did for AIDS and Angelina Jolie did for prophylactic mastectomy. By asserting last week that his cancer was caused by a virus transmitted during oral sex, Mr. Douglas pushed the disease onto the front pages and made millions of Americans worry about it for the first time. In this case, it was a subset of Americans who normally worry more about being killed by cholesterol than by an S.T.D. The typical victim is a middle-aged, middle-class, married heterosexual white man who has had about six oral sex partners in his lifetime. The virus, human papillomavirus Type 16, also causes cervical cancer. So is there any early oral screening that a man can have — an equivalent to the Pap smear, which has nearly eliminated cervical cancer as a death threat in this country? The answer, according to cancer experts and a recent opinion from the United States Preventive Services Task Force, is no. And for surprising reasons. The Pap test — invented in 1928 by Dr. George N. Papanicolaou — involves scraping a few cells from the cervix and checking them under a microscope for precancerous changes. Precancerous cells have a “halo” around the nucleus, while cancerous ones have larger, more colorful nuclei, said Dr. Paul D. Blumenthal, a professor of gynecology at Stanford University Medical School. In theory, it should be similarly easy to scrape and examine [...]

Why HPV vaccination makes a difference against cancer

Source: www.cbsnews.com Author: Michelle Castillo Michael Douglas' frank discussion about the human papillomavirus (HPV) and oral cancer has put a spotlight on the dangers of the sexually transmitted virus. While using a condom may reduce risk for HPV, doctors are reminding people that the best way to protect oneself from the disease that can potentially lead to cancer is to get vaccinated at an early age and, if possible, go for routine screenings. HPV is a group of more than 100 very common viruses, about 40 of which can be transmitted sexually, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women's Health. Approximately 79 million Americans are currently infected with an HPV strain, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, and nearly all sexually active men and women will get one type of sexually transmitted HPV in their lifetime. Specifically, 20 million people in the U.S. between the ages of 15 to 49 are infected with a genital HPV at any given time, and about half of men and women can expect to be infected with genital HPV in their lifetime. "HPV is ubiquitous in our population," Dr. Lori Wirth, medical director of the Center for Head and Neck Cancers center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, explained to CBSNews.com. "Anyone who has led a normal sex life will get HPV, and develop antibodies to the virus. But, a minority of people who have contact with the virus who don't effectively clear the virus from [...]

Study Endorses HPV Testing for All Women Over 30

Source: Medscape.com LONDON (Reuters) Dec 15 - New DNA tests looking for the virus responsible for most cases of cervical cancer make sense for all women aged 30 or over, since they can prevent more cases of cancer than Pap smears alone, Dutch researchers say. Results of a five-year study involving 45,000 women provided the strongest evidence yet in favor of using human papillomavirus (HPV) testing, Dr. Chris Meijer and colleagues from the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam reported in The Lancet Oncology on December 15. In recent years, tests for high-risk HPV strains have been developed by companies including Roche and Qiagen. The new tests are known to work well in detecting HPV, but the Dutch study is the first to show they are better than Pap smears alone over two screening rounds set five years apart. The researchers, who looked at women aged 29 to 56, said use of HPV tests led to earlier detection of pre-cancerous lesions, allowing for treatment that improved protection against cancer. Dr. Hormuzd Katki and Dr. Nicolas Wentzensen from the U.S. National Cancer Institute said the results reinforced earlier findings, and provided "overwhelming evidence" of the benefits of including HPV testing in cervical screening programs. The government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force currently urges women who have been sexually active and have a cervix to get Pap smears at least every three years. However, the group recommends against routinely screening women over 65 if they had normal results on a recent Pap [...]

2011-12-27T11:06:49-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Human papilloma virus (HPV) and cancer

Source: ezinearticles.com Author: David Warmflash, MD Human papilloma virus (HPV), is a category of viruses of which more than seventy subtypes are known. Most people have heard of HPV, because the media have spent a good deal of time discussing the issue of mandatory vaccination against the virus. The discussion in the news is well-deserved. Each year, approximately 6.2 million people are infected with (HPV). Usually, the virus is cleared by the immune system, before any disease can develop. However, because of the high rate of infection, HPV-associated disease is all-too common around the world. Each year 11,000 new cases of invasive cervical cancer are diagnosed in the United States, leading to approximately 4,000 deaths. The rate would be much higher, were it not for the advent of the the Papanicolaou test (Pap smear), used to screen for precancerous conditions since the 1930s. Since Pap smears and HPV vaccinations are hot topics, even if you have no background in medicine, it is likely that you are aware of HPV as an agent that causes cervical cancer. What you may not know, however, is that HPV also is involved in cancers of the throat and the skin. Actually, not all of the subtypes of HPV are known to be involved in the pathological process leading to cancer and precancerous conditions of the cervix. Of the HPV subtypes linked to cervical cancer, four types are most important. These are HPV-6b, HPV-11, HPV-16, and HPV-18, the latter two being the most dangerous for [...]

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