Cancer on the head and neck are related to sexual activity. This is caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) which is the principal cause of this cancer. HPV can be transmitted through an oral sex type of sexual activity.
“This relationship is strong, especially oral sex associated with the increase in HPV infection,” said Dr. Greg Hartig, professor of Otolaryngology Head and neck surgery at the faculty of medicine and public health University of Wisconsin, according to healthday.
A study in 2007 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that young people with cancer on the head and neck were positive for HPV infection in the mouth are more likely to have a lot of vaginal and oral sex with their partners in their lives.
In the study, having six or more oral sex partners during lifetime have a 3.4 times higher risk for oropharyngeal cancer – cancer of the tongue base, back of the throat or tonsils.
Researchers also reported that the tonsils and base of the tongue cancer has increased every year since 1973. The increase is also related to oral sex activity that is spreading among teenagers. In it, French kiss is also vulnerable to transmit HPV. Some types of HPV can cause cervical cancer.
According to Dr. A. Amesh Adalja, instructor in the Section of Infectious Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, HPV tend to have specific locations. HPV tend to survive in the first body area it meets. It can be the vagina (which in some cases can cause cervical cancer), or the mouth and throat.
In other words, the changing trend of sexual activity also cause changes HPV infection.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that, in 2002, about 90 percent of men and 88 percent of women aged 25 to 44 years old were claimed to have had oral sex with opposite sex couples. Compared to 1992 which showed about 75 percent of men aged 20 to 39 years old and almost 70 percent of women aged 18-59 years old had oral sex.
HPV attacks will get more vicious if the person also smokes. Of the patients with HPV who smokes, only about 45-50 percent who survive. Meanwhile, from among non-smokers, 85 percent of people with HPV-positive tumors survived.
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