HPV symptoms and health consequences
Source: www.kristv.com Author: Roland Rodriguez No one dreams of walking into his or her doctor’s office and hearing the words "you have been diagnosed with human papillomavirus, or HPV." Unfortunately, this scenario is all too real. HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted infection (STI) in the United States. In fact, it's so common that nearly all sexually active men and women get it at some point in their lives. There are over 100 different kinds of HPV but only some of them can cause serious health problems like genital warts or cancer of the cervix, vagina, vulva or anus. Testing positive for HPV does not automatically mean you will get cancer. Some studies estimate that 50 percent of those infected with HPV will clear the virus within eight months— and 90 percent will be cured within two years. It's only when your immune system isn’t able to fight off the infection that some strains of HPV can persist and possibly lead to cancer. The number of human papilloma virus (HPV)-associated cancers in the United States has increased by 17 percent, to nearly 39,000 cases a year, according to a report released from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While men cannot get HPV-linked cervical cancers, they are particularly vulnerable to HPV-related cancers of the mouth, tongue and throat, called oropharyngeal cancers. According to the new CDC report, the rates of mouth and throat cancers are more than four times higher among males than females. In the past, people always [...]