Oral sex raises the risk of getting cancer by 22 times

Oral sex dramatically increases the risk of head and neck cancers, a new study has claimed.

The disease has traditionally been considered to be one that affects smokers and heavy drinkers in later life.

But over recent years, as cases have been rising, it has been linked with the common human papillomavirus (HPV).

It is believed oral sex may be the main way HPV - more usually associated with cervical cancer - ends up in the mouth.

The group of viruses affect the skin and moist membranes which line the body, including the anus, cervix and mouth and throat. 

HPV-16 is a well-known cause of oropharyngeal tumours - those which affect the middle part of the throat including the soft palate, the base of the tongue and the tonsils. 

While HPV does not directly trigger cancer, it causes changes in the cells it has infected (for example, in the throat or cervix), and these cells can then become cancerous.

Men are twice as likely to get oropharyngeal cancer as women, according to NHS choices, because performing cunnilingus is more risky than fellatio.

This new study, published in the journal JAMA Oncology, is the first to show conclusively that HPV-16's presence in the mouth leads to the development of oropharyngeal cancer.

This follows a study in The New England Journal of Medicine which showed that those infected with HPV were 32 times more likely to develop oral or throat cancers.  

And previous research published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found HPV now accounts for more head and neck cancers than tobacco or alcohol.

The new research, carried out at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, suggested people carrying the virus in their mouth were an alarming 22 times more likely to develop a potentially lethal tumour.

The finding was based on almost 97,000 people who provided mouthwash samples and were cancer-free at the beginning of the project.

They were followed for an average of four years, during which time a total of 132 cases of head and neck cancer were identified.

The study participants were compared with 396 healthy people who acted as controls.

Mouthwash samples were analysed for the presence of several types of oral HPVs in both groups.

These revealed people with HPV-16 in their mouthwash were 22 times more likely to develop oropharyngeal cancer (oropharynx is the part of the throat directly behind the mouth) than were those with no detectable trace of the virus HPV-16 in their samples.

In addition, the researchers found for the first time that the presence of other types of oral HPVs, known as beta and gamma, which are usually detected in the skin, were also associated with the development of head and neck cancers.

This indicated a broader role for HPVs in causing these cancers than has been recognised to date.

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