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 HPV is among the most common sexually transmitted diseases. Most
infections don’t cause symptoms and go away on their own. But the
virus can cause cancers of the throat, anus, penis, cervix, vagina
and vulva, as well as genital warts and lesions in the upper
respiratory tract.
Among U.S. adults ages 18 to 69, approximately 11 million men and
3.2 million women nationwide have oral HPV infections, researchers
estimated. Men were at the highest risk of developing oral HPV when
they had oral sex with other men or also had genital HPV infections.
Rising rates of HPV infections among men may help explain why throat
cancers in men are now more common than cervical cancer in women,
said senior study author Ashish Deshmukh, a public health researcher
at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
“We have the HPV vaccine approved for use in both boys and girls,
which has the potential to decrease rates of HPV-associated cancers
in the future,” Deshmukh said by email. “But the low uptake of the
vaccine among boys and disparities in the uptake remains a concern.”
In the U.S., the HPV vaccine is recommended for children at age 11
or 12, with the goal of protecting them against the virus before
they become sexually active, and also for teens and young adults who
may not have previously been vaccinated.
But as of last year, only about half of girls and even fewer boys
got the two-dose series of shots needed to fully protect against the
virus, Deshmukh said.
The most common cancer related to HPV infection is what’s known as
oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC), a type of head and
neck cancer that is disproportionately prevalent in men, researchers
note in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
While the HPV vaccine may help prevent these tumors, the vaccine is
currently only recommended for people up to age 26 and many men are
too old to receive the shots.
For the study, researchers examined nationally-representative survey
data from 4,493 men and 4,641 women. They found that overall, 11.5
percent of men and 3.2 percent of women had oral HPV infections.
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A high-risk strain of the virus, HPV 16, was the cause of oral
infections in 7.3 percent of men and 1.4 percent of women. But among
those reporting same-sex sexual partners, 12.7 percent of men and
3.4 percent of women had high-risk infections.
Nearly 20 percent of men with genital HPV infections also had oral
HPV, compared to just over 4 percent of men without genital HPV, the
researchers also found.
One limitation of the study is that it relied on survey participants
to accurately report on their sexual orientation and behaviors and
stigma might lead some people to be untruthful, the authors note.
Still, the findings highlight a need for better prevention among
both men and women, said Dr. Erich Sturgis, a researcher at the
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who wasn’t
involved in the study.
“We do not have treatment for persistent infection or screening for
many HPV-related cancers,” Sturgis said by email.
“It is critical that we maximize HPV vaccination rates in
adolescents and young adults,” Sturgis added. “This cannot be
stressed enough.”
In addition to vaccination, condoms can also help lower the risk of
HPV transmission, Deshmukh said. Men and women can both get screened
for anal cancer, and women can get cervical cancer screenings to
catch any tumors earlier when they may be easier to treat, he added.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2fazTFW Annals of Internal Medicine, online
October 16, 2017.
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