In 2006, in the US alone, about 31,000 individuals will be diagnosed with oral cancer. 66% of the time these will be found as late stage three and four disease. Low public awareness of the disease is a significant factor, but these cancers could be found at early highly survivable stages through a simple, painless, 5 minute examination by a trained medical or dental professional.
Recently, you've noticed a pale lump inside your mouth that doesn't seem to be healing. It's not like anything you've seen before. What you may have encountered is an early sign of oral or throat (oropharyngeal) cancer.Smoking and other tobacco use are associated with 70-80% of oral cancer cases. Smoke and heat from cigarettes, cigars, and pipes irritate the mucous membranes of the mouth. Use of chewing tobacco or snuff causes irritation from direct contact with the mucous membranes. Heavy alcohol use is another high-risk activity associated with oral cancer.
Oral cancers may originate in any of the tissues of the mouth, and may be of varied histologic types: adenocarcinoma derived from a major or minor salivary gland, lymphoma from tonsillar or other lymphoid tissue, or melanoma from the pigment producing cells of the oral mucosa. Far and away the most common oral cancer is squamous cell carcinoma, originating in the tissues that line the mouth and lips. Oral or mouth cancer most commonly involves the tissue of the lips or the tongue.
Now a days oral sex is practiced in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships. In heterosexual relationships, oral sex can be a method of contraception (birth control) since pregnancy is impossible unless sperm enters the vagina. Many heterosexuals choose oral sex as an alternative to intercourse for this reason. It is important to note that oral sexual activities are not effective methods of preventing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), although some forms of STD are believed to be less readily spread in this way.
A report issued in September 2005 by the National Center for Health Statistics was the basis of an article in the September 26, 2005 issue of Time magazine. The report comes from the results of a computer-administered survey of over 12,000 Americans between the ages of 15 and 44, and states that over half the teenagers questioned have had oral sex. While some headlines have interpreted this as evidence that oral sex among teens is "on the rise", this was the first comprehensive study of its kind to examine the matter.
In 2005, another research study at the College of Malmö in Sweden suggested that performing unprotected oral sex on a person infected with HPV might increase the risk of oral cancer . The risk from most of these types of infection, however, is generally considered far lower than that associated with vaginal or anal sex.
Chlamydia, human papillomavirus (HPV), gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis (multiple strains), and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) — including HIV — can be transmitted through oral sex. However transmission of HIV through fellatio or cunnilingus is relatively rare. Any kind of direct contact with body fluids of a person infected with HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) should be avoided.
A study from Sweden shows that Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection from oral sex may have increased rate of tonsillar cancer.
Reports from both the US and Finland have documented a rise in the incidence of tonsillar cancer. This occurred in the absence of any increase in smoking or alcohol consumption, two well-known causative factors for the malignancy. This led Dr. Eva Munck-Wikland, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and colleagues to look for other epidemiologic trends that might explain the growing incidence of tonsillar cancer.
HPV is known to be associated with tonsillar cancers. Whether an increase in HPV-positive cases drove the recent increase in incidence, however, was unclear.
In their study, reported in the International Journal of Cancer, the investigators found that the incidence of tonsillar cancer rose by 2.8-fold in Sweden during the study period, 1970 to 2002. Cases of the disease in women rose by 3.5-fold, while cases in men increased by 2.6-fold.
At the same time, the proportion of HPV-positive cases of tonsillar cancer increased 2.9-fold, the report indicates. In the 1970s, 23.3 percent of cases were HPV-positive compared with 68 percent in 2000 to 2002.
This may be related to patterns of sexual behavior, with high-risk HPV-16 infections, not uncommon in the genital area, also becoming more common in the mouth due to an increase in oral sex, Munck-Wikland and colleagues note
They hypothesize that an "epidemic" of HPV infection in the oral cavity, due to changed sexual habits, "may contribute to the significant increase in incidence of tonsillar cancer."
If HPV does, in fact, cause tonsillar cancer, it might stimulate interest in developing a vaccine for preventing the malignancy, they suggest.
Periodic self-examination of your mouth is the best way to detect the early signs of oral and throat cancer. And, when detected early, oral cancer is almost always successfully treated. Unfortunately, many oral and throat cancers are far advanced by the time a doctor is made aware of the situation. This is because oral and throat cancers are usually painless in their early stages or have minor symptoms similar to other health problems, such as a toothache.
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