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Strains of human papillomavirus are increasingly being linked to cancers of the esophagus, throat and mouth.
Michael Douglas was on to something.
A new review of previous research shows people with HPV infections have a three-fold greater chance of esophageal cancer.
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“This doesn’t mean it is present in all (esophageal cancers), but it may be a factor in a certain proportion of cases,” Dr. Surabhi Liyanage, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health.
The role of human papillomavirus in oral, throat and esophageal cancers has been a topic of debate among doctors and researchers.
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Actor Michael Douglas became an inadvertent PSA for HPV after saying his throat cancer had been caused by the virus.
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Douglas made headlines when he said in an interview published last month that his throat cancer, now in remission, had been caused by HPV contracted through oral sex.
Though no test can detect HPV in men, doctors can analyze cancerous tumors for HPV cells.
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Liyanage and her colleagues gathered results from all of the studies that have compared patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma to people without it — a total of 21 studies comprising 1,233 people with esophageal cancer and 1,415 people without cancer.
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The HPV vaccine is recommended for both boys and girls, but vaccination rates are lagging, according to a new government report.
HPV was found in the esophageal tissue of 35 percent of the cancer patients, compared to 27 percent of the people without esophageal cancer.
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Taken together, the studies link HPV infection of esophageal tissue to a three-fold greater risk of esophageal cancer, the researchers report in the online journal PLOS ONE.
The results don’t show definitively that HPV causes esophageal cancer, Liyanage said.
Esophageal cancer is also linked to risk factors such as smoking, excessive drinking, poor diet and chronic acid reflux.
HPV can be prevented in both men and women through the HPV vaccine, but vaccination rates are lagging, according to government statistics released last week. Only about 53% of girls aged 13-17 received the vaccine, far below the target of 80%. Only about 8% of teen boys got at least one of the three doses.
With News Wire Services
