infection

How protein made by HPV thwarts protective human protein, causing malignancy

Source: American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology BETHESDA, MD., Jan. 11, 2011 – An international team of researchers is reporting that it has uncovered new information about human papilloma virus that one day may aid in the development of drugs to eliminate the cervical-cancer-causing infection. Led by researcher Per Jemth of Uppsala University in Sweden, the collaborators from four institutions detail in the Journal of Biological Chemistry how an offensive protein generated by the sexually transmitted virus handicaps a defensive protein made by the human body. Co-author Neil Ferguson, a biophysicist at University College Dublin, says: "It has proved difficult to stem the proliferation of many viruses using conventional drug discovery. Inhibitors of protein-protein interactions, as in HPV's case, are potentially potent ways to perturb viral infections." There are almost 200 strains of HPV, dozens of which are transmitted through genital contact, and about half of sexually active people have had one or more infections. The immune system eliminates the virus within two years in about 90 percent of cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, but it lingers for many years in a minority of cases. Some strains result in no visible symptoms, others cause genital warts and still others cause cancer. "Infection by high-risk human papilloma viruses is causing as many as half a million cases of cervical cancer and more than 200,000 deaths among women per year, making it one of the most common forms of cancer," Jemth emphasized. For the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-17T21:36:34-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Why men’s health is a feminist issue

Source: www.msmagazine.com Author: Adina Nack Jorge (not his real name) feared his girlfriend would dump him. He’d been diagnosed with genital warts before meeting her, and hadn’t yet told her about his infection. Jorge was being careful—no skin-to-skin sexual contact—but the disclosure was looming. So he’d done some research and learned what caused genital warts. Armed with that knowledge, he hoped that his girlfriend wouldn’t reject him, especially since he knew she could be protected from contracting warts “because of the Gardasil vaccine.” It never occurred to Jorge that Gardasil, made by the pharmaceutical company Merck, could also have protected him. But that’s probably because it was only last October that the Food and Drug Administration approved a “male” Gardasil for preventing genital warts. And the FDA has yet to put its stamp on another promising usage of the vaccine for men: preventing cancer, especially highly prevalent oral cancers. Since Gardasil was FDA-approved in 2006, it has received a huge marketing push for preventing cervical cancer in women. It has come into frequent—if sometimes controversial—use for females 9 to 26 years old because it’s designed to guard them, before they ever have sex, against contracting a virus that has been linked to cervical cancer. That virus is HPV, human papillomavirus, which causes one-third of all sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. Gardasil offers protection against four of the 30 to 40 types of sexually transmissible HPV. While it’s fear of cervical cancer that have motivated young women to get [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-09T21:48:41-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Charting the path from infection to cancer

Source: www.cancer.gov/ncicancerbulletin Author: Eleanor Mayfield Few people associate infection with cancer, but close to one-fifth of all cancers in the world are caused by infectious agents, including viruses, bacteria, and other microbes. In developing countries, the number is higher—about one in four—while in industrialized countries, such as the United States, it is about one in 12. Infectious agents that can cause cancer are extremely common, infecting millions of people around the world. Yet it is rare and takes a long time for an infection to develop into cancer. “You need a lot of things to happen, or not happen, to get from an infection to cancer,” said Dr. Douglas R. Lowy, chief of NCI’s Laboratory of Cellular Oncology and a leader in the molecular biology of tumor viruses. The microbes responsible for most of the global burden of infection-associated cancer are: the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which causes gastric cancer; cancer-causing strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which cause cervical cancer and other cancers; and the hepatitis B and C viruses, which cause liver cancer. These four microbes alone cause more than 15 percent of all cancers worldwide. Other cancers known to be associated with infectious agents include leukemia and lymphoma; anal, penile, vaginal, and vulvar cancer; and tongue and throat cancers. Last week, researchers reported new evidence linking aggressive prostate tumors to a virus. Role of the Immune System Microbes can lead to cancer by a variety of mechanisms that are not yet fully understood, explained Dr. Allan Hildesheim, chief [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-09-23T08:59:07-07:00September, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

7 Facts you need to know about HPV and Gardasil

Source: www.usnews.com Author: Bernadine Healy M.D. As women—and soon men—gain access to the new Merck vaccine Gardasil, which targets the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stepped up efforts to identify the 25,000 or more cancers primarily associated with HPV that increase the burden of cancer in the United States each year. As reported in the November 15 supplement to the journal Cancer, the latest figures include 10,846 patients with invasive cancer of the cervix, followed by 7,360 with cancers of the mouth, particularly the tonsils and the back of the tongue. In addition, there are 3,018 cancers of the anus, 2,266 of the vulva, and 828 of the penis. To the CDC, these are baseline numbers to track the life-threatening consequences of HPV infection. To sexually active young people, this report should be a wake-up call. The hows and whys of catching contagious warts and cancer through sex should be part of every parent's birds-and-bees talk, every school's sex-ed curriculum, and—most of all—all young people's thinking about their own sexual vulnerability. Here are seven need-to-know facts: 1. Infected boys and men are silent carriers of HPV, spewing out their contagion in body fluids. With some strains, visible warts on the genitals bud off fresh virus. 2. Infected girls and young women (particularly vulnerable to infection because of a still-developing cervix) also shed abnormal cells bearing virus into Pap smears, tests that sexually active women should have yearly. The atypical cells usually clear in [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-11-18T03:34:59-07:00November, 2008|Oral Cancer News|