Can Oral HPV Infection Be Spread Mouth-to-Mouth?
Men who had female partners with a genital and/or oral human papillomavirus (HPV) infection had a greater risk for acquiring oral HPV infections themselves, suggesting that HPV transmission could occur oral-to-oral and oral-to-genital, according to a recent study.
“HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the world and is a risk factor for several cancers, including cervical, vaginal, vulvar, oropharyngeal [throat/tonsil], anal, and penile cancers,” said Eduardo L. Franco, DrPH, an author of the study and professor and director of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and chairman of the Department of Oncology at McGill University Faculty of Medicine in Montreal, Canada.
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“Understanding how HPV is transmitted is important because it will help us identify who is most at risk for HPV infection and how we can help them protect themselves and their partners,” he said.
For the study, researchers examined 222 men and their female partners from the HPV Infection and Transmission Among Couples Through Heterosexual Activity study conducted at McGill University.
Participants provided their sexual history in a questionnaire and provided oral and vaginal or penile/scrotal samples which were evaluated for the presence of 36 mucosal HPV types. The female students were 18 to 24 years of age.
Of the 222, researchers discovered that 130 men had a partner with a genital HPV infection.
The study showed that 7.2% of the men had HPV infections, and HPV incidence was higher in men who had a partner with an oral HPV infection (28.6%) and/or genital HPV infection (11.5%), those who were smokers (12.2%), and those who were not in monogamous relationships (17.9%).
Researchers found no HPV infections in the group of 52 men who never smoked cigarettes, who where in a monogamous relationship, and who had a partner without oral or genital HPV.
The investigators noted that HPV16 (a common cancer-causing HPV strand) was present in 2.3% of all the male participants in the study and was present in 6.1% of the 33 men who had a female partner with a genital HPV16 infection.
Investigators further noted that men showed more than a 2-fold increase in the specific HPV type (present in the female partner’s genitals) for every unit increase in the oral sex frequency on their female partner.
The complete study is published in the November issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
-Michelle Canales
Reference:
American Association for Cancer Research. Oral cancer-causing HPV may spread through oral and genital routes. November 12, 2014. www.aacr.org/Newsroom/Pages/News-Release-Detail.aspx?ItemID=624#.VGOIRV4iqf0. Accessed November 12, 2014.