London: Here’s a warning for those who love indulging in oral sex: A recent study has found oral sex to be a major risk factor for throat cancer in the UK and the US.
Cervical cancer used to be the most common type of cancer in the two countries, but such has been the rise in incidence of throat cancer in the last two decades that it is assuming proportions of an ‘epidemic’, according to experts.
This was mainly because of human papillomavirus (HPV), which is also the main cause of cervical cancer, wrote Dr Hisham Mehanna of the University of Birmingham in the journal The Conversation.
HPV is a common virus that spreads through vaginal, anal and oral sex with someone who is already infected.
According to the study, oral sex has led to a major rise in a specific type of throat cancer called oropharyngeal cancer, which affects the tonsils and back of the throat.
“Over the past two decades, there has been a rapid increase in throat cancer in the West, to the extent that some have called it an epidemic,” Dr Mehanna wrote.
“HPV is sexually transmitted. For oropharyngeal cancer, the main risk factor is the number of lifetime sexual partners, especially oral sex,” he stated.
Dr Mehanna added that those with six or more lifetime oral sex partners are 8.5 times more likely to develop oropharyngeal cancer than those who do not practise oral sex.
According to the National Health Service (NHS), around 8,300 people are diagnosed with throat cancer every year in the UK, which amounts to about one in 50 cancers diagnosed.
In most cases, these infections go away on their own, but can persist and cause cancer in some cases.
There is a vaccine for HPV, which is 80% effective and available in several developed countries.
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