Men are twice as likely to get mouth and throat cancer as women. The HPV-16 papillomavirus is at the origin of this phenomenon.
This is a study that agrees with Michael Douglas. The American actor, in remission from throat cancer, questioned the practice of cunilingus. In fact, men are more exposed than their female partners to human papillomaviruses. This statement is at least true when the airways are affected.
Men are at twice the risk of oral or throat cancer associated with the HPV-16 strain, according to a study conducted by researchers at Johns-Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland, USA). The results were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Women better protected
The origin of this increased risk of oropharyngeal cancer is indeed the practice of oral sex (cunilingus or fellatio). White and middle-aged men are more affected by the phenomenon than others, reveal the authors. But the risk is above all dose-dependent, that is to say it increases with the number of partners. This characteristic is not found in women. For an equal number of partners, they are much less exposed to cancers of the mouth and throat.
“Not only are men at greater risk than women of contracting the virus, but they also take much longer to evacuate it, because their immune response is much weaker,” explains Prof. Gypsyamber D ‘ Souza. In fact, women exposed to strain 16 of the papillomavirus vaginally are better protected because their immune systems respond better. Against this strain, two vaccines are available in France: Gardasil and Cervarix.
Oral sex widely practiced
Most of the time, the body kills the papillomavirus after a year or two. But in 22% of cases, it increases the risk of oropharyngeal cancers by a particular mechanism. It does not directly trigger the mutations that cause the tumor, but it changes the cells it infects in the throat, which become cancerous. In France, 91% of women and 94% of men aged 18 to 69 declared having already practiced oral sex in the last major survey on French sexuality in 2006.
Papillomaviruses are responsible for a third of oral cavity cancers. The association was established in 2007 by a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine : “Our data suggest that oral HPV infection is sexually acquired. Orogenital contact is strongly associated with oropharyngeal cancer, ”states the text. The risk is increased by 32% when an HPV infection is diagnosed.
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