HPV16 TONGUE CANCER HARD TO UNDERSTAND? HOLD MY BEER

 

 

 

 

Hpv16 tongue cancer is hard to understand, but only if you look at the numbers.

 

From cbsnews.com:

 

Eleven million American men are infected with oral human papillomavirus (HPV), which can lead to cancers of the head, neck and throat, a new study reports.

 

That equates to 1 in 9 U.S. males aged 18 to 69. And infection is most likely for those who have had multiple oral sexual partners, are gay or bisexual, or who also have genital HPV infection, a team of U.S. researchers found.

 

It’s much easier to understand after you get the cancer results. So much easier, like, ‘Oh no, cancer’, pretty much the same as everyone else with adverse cancer news.

Except hpv16 comes with special baggage.

 

And it’s preventable? And a high cure rate after the treatment? Not to say hpv16 is cancer-lite, but that’s sort of what it reads like. The numbers used to describe it feeds into more confusion.

 

“The incidence of this cancer has increased 300 percent in the last 20 years,” said lead researcher Ashish Deshmukh. He’s a research assistant professor at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions.

They found that nearly 12 percent of men and about 3 percent of women were infected with oral HPV.

Nearly 2 million men had high-risk HPV 16, a strain that causes most of the cancers, Deshmukh said. This type was six times more common in men than women.

 

Before you graph the data for a visual confirmation, just understand that anyone you know with a health profile that includes hpv16 is as confused as the rest of the researchers.

 

According to 2013-2014 CDC research, more than 45 percent of men were infected with genital HPV, which is more common than the oral type. At the same time, about 40 percent of women carried genital HPV.

Genital HPV can cause cancer of the anus, penis and vagina. Vaginal HPV causes about 70 percent of all cases of cervical cancer, the CDC says.

One specialist said a lot of unknowns surround oral HPV.

 

Let’s look at the ‘known’ instead of unknown. Not all women are up to date on their health week to week, the same as anyone else between regular physicals. Not every man checks a health card on the tenth date.

 

“The prevalence of oral HPV is much lower than genital HPV, and we don’t understand that,” said Patti Gravitt, a professor in the department of global health at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

 

Based on my research from the male cohort, not everyone includes a trip around the world in their sex life. As a blogger with skin in the hpv16 debate, I avoid asking women about their pap smear. Of course this could have been a tactical mistake during my date years, but I recommend that’s exactly what you ought to do today.

 

It’s also not clear why men have more oral HPV than women, she said. Moreover, rates of oral HPV are higher in younger and older people, and that, too, is not understood, said Gravitt, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.

 

If the following doesn’t clear up further confusion,  at least it won’t create more:

 

The number of women engaging in oral sex from the giving side is much smaller than the male side. Which isn’t to compare quality and quantity, in case you were wondering. Men have more incidents of hpv16 in their necks than women because more men are involved.

 

And good for them. The bad part is communication. Where’s the hpv16 red flag for the young?

 

With decades long incubation, and lowered immune systems that sometimes occurs with age, hpv16 tongue cancer for men in their sixties feels like a personal ambush.

 

They might need a ‘twelve steps for cancer’ program, or a ‘stages of cancer grief’ list to push past the bad stuff. How bad? One waiting room witness said the treatment was bad, but catching pneumonia afterwards was worse. Pneumonia, drug addictions, secondary infections, food phobias, and tactical mistakes are only a few stops on the hpv16 tour.

 

To get a clear picture, start with a better breakdown.