Oral HPV infections were more common among sexually experienced people who had not engaged in oral sex than among sexually inexperienced individuals. Smoking may suppress the immune system, leading to longer infections with the virus. HPV may also spread by kissing.
Research findings show that oral HPV infections are, for the most part, sexually transmitted. People who reported engaging in oral sex were twice as likely to have an oral HPV infection as those who did not engage in oral sex. People who have had sex of any kind, including vaginal sex or oral sex, were eight times more likely to have an oral HPV infection than those who had not had sex. Among those who’d had 20 or more sexual partners, one in five had an oral HPV infection.
The new findings were “reassuring,” according to study researcher Dr. Maura Gillison, Chair of Cancer Research at The Ohio State University , because they show that while oral infection with the virus is common, cancer cases as a result of these infections are rare. In other words, most infected people don’t get cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be about 40,000 new cases of cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx in 2012.
“This study of oral HPV infection is the critical first step towards developing potential oropharyngeal cancer prevention strategies,” Gillison said. “This is clearly important, because HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer is poised to overtake cervical cancer as the leading type of HPV-caused cancers in the U.S.”
About 7 percent of adults and teens in the United States are orally infected with the human papillomavirus, or HPV. This represents about 14.9 million people. As per the study conducted, about 10 percent of men aged between 14 to 69 years have an oral HPV infection, compared with 3.6 percent of women, the study showed. Thus, it is evident that more men than women are infected of HPV.
