Michael Douglas got throat cancer from oral sex. Really?

Guess what. It’s might be true. How can this be? It turns out that about one-third or perhaps more of throat cancers (specifically called oropharyngeal – referring to the back of the mouth and the throat) are associated with an infection called human papilloma virus or HPV. HPV is a common sexually transmitted (by the standard way) infection that affects most women at some time in their lives and is the major, maybe only, cause of cervical cancer. That is why we have developed vaccines for this virus to give to girls before they become sexually active. If every young woman were vaccinated before becoming sexually active, there would be almost no more cervical cancer. This virus is likely the main cause of cancer of the vulva and vagina as well as the anus. So who would have thought that is would affect the oral cavity? One major proof of this is a recent article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (July 20). Here is how the study went. Many years ago, European researchers collected blood from over 300,000 people to test in the future when these people developed a disease such as cancer to see if there was something already abnormal in these people. When they looked at people who developed throat cancer years later, it turns out that in one-third, their blood had antibodies to HPV, evidence that they had been infected with HPV. In people who didn’t have the cancer, less than one in one-hundred showed evidence of the infection. So it is clear that there is a link bet...
Source: Dr.Kattlove's Cancer Blog - Category: Oncologists Source Type: blogs