• 3/19/2002
  • New York
  • Drs. Stimson P. Schantz and Guo-Pei Yu
  • Rueters Health

The incidence of tongue cancer, increased 60 percent over the last three decades in U.S. adults under age 40, according to a new report. “Because incidence rates of overall head and neck cancer have remained stable and have even shown a very small declining trend since the 1970s, the increase in the number of young adult patients (with tongue cancer) is concerning,” write co-authors Drs. Stimson P. Schantz and Guo-Pei Yu of New York Medical College in Manhattan. While factors responsible for the increase remain unknown, the authors suggest increasing use of marijuana as well as smokeless tobacco products like chewing tobacco among this population group may be to blame. Another possible cause may be infections with the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), the report indicates. HPV has been under suspicion as a cause of head and neck cancer, since DNA of the virus has been detected in head and neck tumors. But studies of the relationship have provided mixed results.

Schantz and Yu identified a total of 63,409 patients with head and neck cancer between 1973 and 1997 from a cancer surveillance database established by the National Cancer Institute. Within this group, 3,339 patients were younger than 40 years of age. The incidence of head and neck cancers remained stable for people over age 40, but tongue cancer in younger adults increased approximately 60 percent during the same time period, the investigators found. “The present study exhibits a significantly increased trend of tongue cancer in Americans born after 1938,” write Schantz and Yu in the March issue of the medical journal Archives of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. “The acceleration (of tongue cancer) began in 1973, peaked in 1985, and subsequently has been stable,” they add. “In contrast to oral tongue cancer, the incidence rates of other head and neck cancers in younger Americans, such as cancers of pharynx and larynx, remained relatively stable during the same period.” The researchers conclude that the trend they observed may be the “tip-of-the-iceberg” and call for continued vigilance on rates of tongue cancer.

SOURCE: Archives of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery 2002;128:268-274