Cancers once linked to tobacco use now more closely connected to HPV, Texas study says
A cancer more commonly tied to alcohol and tobacco use now has a stronger connection to human papilloma virus (HPV), according to a study by Texas researchers.
In 2018, head and neck cancer was the seventh most common cancer with 890,000 people diagnosed and 450,000 killed worldwide, the study by University of Texas researcher Dr. Laura Chow says.
In the United States, head and neck cancers accounted for 3 percent of all new cancer cases and 1.5 percent of cancer deaths in 2018, according to the study released earlier this month.
Traditionally, head and neck cancer was diagnosed in older patients with a history of heavy alcohol and tobacco use, the study says.
Now, head and neck cancers are more closely linked to something else.
Nearly 73 percent of oropharyngeal (throat) cancer cases have been associated with HPV — primarily type 16 —since the new millennium, the study says. In the 1980s, HPV accounted for only 16.3 percent of cases.
“We’re seeing that there’s been a substantial rise in HPV, or human papilloma virus, associated with head and neck cancers, in particularly throat cancers,” Chow told KVUE. “Usually it’s a lag period of 10 to 20 years before we start seeing the virus infection subsequently causing cancer.”
HPV is a sexually transmitted infection that affects 79 million Americans, mostly teens and young adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It can be transmitted through vaginal, anal and oral sex.
HPV has been closely linked to cervical cancer, among others, and can also cause genital warts, the CDC says.
The virus is so prevalent that every person who is sexually active is expected to get HPV at some point if they don’t get the HPV vaccine, according to the CDC.
The HPV vaccine is recommended for preteens between ages 11 and 12, the CDC says, but has been approved for people up to 45 years old, according to the FDA.
“Everybody gets it, so everybody gives it, so it’s everywhere,” Dr. Lauren Thaxton told KVUE. “If you get the vaccine, ideally before you’ve ever had sex, then it helps your immune system protect you against that virus, that exposure to that virus.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 11:21 AM with the headline "Cancers once linked to tobacco use now more closely connected to HPV, Texas study says."