Men raises the risk of getting cancer by 22 times with oral sex

Men are twice as likely as women to get cancer of the mouth and throat linked to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, researchers say.

For men, the risk of HPV-driven cancers of the head and neck rise along with the number of oral sex partners, researchers said Friday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in the US capital.

Nearly two out of three of these oral cancers in the United States and most western nations are caused by infection with the HPV 16 strain of the virus, and incidence of cancer is on the rise in recent years, said Gypsyamber D’Souza, who teaches epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Middle aged white men are at particularly high risk compared to other races.She said her research shows that youths are engaging in oral sex at increasingly young ages, compared to past generations.

“Our research shows that for men, the number of oral sex partners — as that number increases, the risk of an oral HPV infection increases,” she told reporters.But with women, the number of sexual partners does not appear to raise the risk.”Comparing men and women with the same number of sexual partners, a man is much more likely to become infected with oral HPV than a woman.”Furthermore, women who have a greater number of vaginal sex partners appear to face a lower risk of oral HPV infection, she said.

More than two thirds of cases are diagnosed in advanced stages where the cancer has already spread to regional lymph nodes or beyond, the global oral cancer forum reports.
Approximately 150,000 patients die each year and many more suffer from the complications of treatment.