• 6/10/2006
  • Chicago IL
  • Lauren Heist
  • Beep (www.beepcentral.com)

For lots of people, oral sex seems fun and risk-free. You can’t get pregnant, and it’s pretty difficult to get AIDS. What’s not to like?

See, you won’t get pregnant if you give or receive oral sex, but you can get infected with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) — most commonly known as the virus that causes genital warts.

HPV has been known to cause cervical cancer for years, but new research has proven that some forms of this common sexually transmitted disease can lead to cancer of the mouth and throat, according to the American Cancer Society.

HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the world — 75 to 80 percent of all Americans between the ages of 15 and 49 have been infected with the virus, according to the American Social Health Association.

In fact, you’re probably infected right now and don’t even know it. That’s because when the virus is inactive, it’s very difficult to spot. You can get a normal pap smear and still be a carrier. When the virus becomes active, it often shows up as genital warts.

HPV, whether active or inactive, is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact, so you can get HPV even if you or your partner is wearing a condom or even if you’re having oral sex instead of regular sex.

“If you’re wearing a condom, there are parts of your anatomy that aren’t protected,” says Brian Hill, executive director of the Oral Cancer Foundation.

Just because HPV is common, however, doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to get cancer. There are about 100 different strains of the virus, and only about 18 are known to cause cells to mutate into cancer, according to Dr. Maura Gillison of Johns Hopkins University, who was part of the team that did the groundbreaking research linking HPV to oral cancer in 2000.

For years, oral cancer was thought to be caused by smoking and drinking and was mainly found in people over 50. But lately, more younger, non-smokers have also been developing oral cancer, most likely as a result of contracting HPV through oral sex, Gillison says.

Hill was not a smoker or a drinker, but his wife was infected with HPV, and that’s how he ended up getting Stage IV cancer in his mouth.

“When someone uses your name and the word cancer in the same sentence… the first thing that comes to your mind is death,” Hill says. “I was really shocked at how advanced it was and I felt fine.”

Luckily, Hill survived the chemotherapy treatment. But for many, oral cancer is deadly because often the only way to stop it is to remove your tongue or jaw bone, which many patients refuse to do, according to Gerilyn Alfe, a Chicago dentist.

About 30,000 Americans will be diagnosed and 8,000 people will die from oral cancer this year, and HPV most likely will be a cause in about 20 percent of those cases, according to the American Cancer Society. Once diagnosed, oral cancer patients live an average of five years.

That’s why Alfe makes sure all of her dental patients get screened for oral cancer, no matter if they’re smokers or not.

Alfe looks inside her patients’ mouth, under the tongue and on the inside of the lips for red or white lesions. She also feels on the inside of the mouth and on the outside of the neck up to the ears for bumps.

So is it possible to still enjoy oral sex and not end up becoming an oral cancer death statistic? Yes.

First, find out if you or your partner has HPV. Gynecologist Lori Warren of Women’s Health First in Buffalo Grove says an abnormal pap smear can be an indication of HPV, although to be sure if you’re a carrier, you should request a special HPV test.

Next, find out what type of HPV you or your partner has. Your health care provider will tell you if you have a high-risk strain of the virus.

If you or your partner does have a high-risk strain of the virus, Gillison says there is no proven way to prevent contracting the virus other than refraining from regular or oral sex.

Alfe, however, recommends you can use a dental dam, a square piece of latex that you can put over the vagina, or perform oral sex over a condom.