Re: cervical cancer vaccine
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 11:00 pm
Soroush,
HPV is now being implicated in explosion of oral cancer in men and women who never smoked.
Dentists have an oral cancer screening which should be done yearly, involves a mouthrinse and using a special UV or other lighted scope to detect early malignancies in the mouth.
A newer one uses just a scope. This is beyond the touch and feel method used on the neck and jaw.
I know someone who died from this, felt something on the tongue, ignored it, grew fast, from jaw, waited too long for operation and radiation.
How Gardasil May Protect Guys
Studies from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere show that HPV may be the cause of one-quarter to one-third of oral and throat cancers, probably transmitted when partners engage in oral sex. Robert Wallach, an oncologist at the New York University Cancer Institute, said the data is too vague to say that's the only way the virus could move to your mouth.
"It's a reasonable assumption to think that a social kiss, even if it's not a torrid affair, could potentially spread the virus to the head and neck," he says.
Wallach supports the potential vaccination of men because of HPV's confirmed part in some rarer cancers, including cancers of the penis.
"It's a rare enough disease that you can't market the drug for that, but it's a good idea and it would protect," he says.
Wallach says the virus could potentially be contributing to other cancers or might be a factor that combines with other risks to trigger the disease.
"Cancer's not always a one-bullet disease," he says. "Most head and neck cancers are associated with smoking. But it may be you need the smoking with the exposure to the virus."
There are about 100 HPV strains, numbered for identification. Gardasil targets two that cause cancer and two that cause genital warts.
"Most people, if they have been infected with one strain, haven't been infected with all four," says Merck spokeswoman Jennifer Allen. "It can't provide treatment and can't prevent you from getting an infection you already have. But it can prevent patients from getting the other strains.
http://www.menshealth.com/health/womens ... care-about
ERIC STATLER'S WISDOM teeth were impacted. Inconvenient, sure, but certainly not life threatening. As general manager of a hotel in Idaho's picturesque Clearwater County, Statler spent his 12-hour days charming and chatting up guests, which meant he couldn't afford a week of bloated cheeks and Percocet. Nor, given his myriad responsibilities at the hotel, did Statler feel he could justify time off for at-home recovery. So he procrastinated until the pain was almost unbearable and eating a turkey sandwich felt like chewing tacks.
Two months after he finally underwent the operation, Statler was still waiting for relief—his molars were gone but the pain remained. Not only did he find it excruciating to chew, but now he was losing weight and beginning to feel emotionally beat down. He decided to return to his dentist, who sent him to a local ear, nose, and throat specialist the same day. The ENT needed just minutes to solve the mystery: He took one look at Statler and said, "Son, I think you have cancer."
Statler couldn't believe it. A former college athlete, he still ran nearly every day, never smoked, and drank only a few beers a week.
"My wife used to say I was the healthiest man she'd ever known," he says. The average oral cancer patient, by contrast, is a lifelong smoker or heavy drinker in his mid-60s.
But the definition of "average" has slowly been changing, as more and more oral cancer diagnoses are being handed down across the country to otherwise healthy young men. Statler soon learned that he was part of this emerging subset of oral cancer patients, a group of guys who all share one unlikely risk factor: HPV, an undetectable and untreatable STD that may act like tinder for tumors.
http://www.menshealth.com/health/sex-cancer
Susan
HPV is now being implicated in explosion of oral cancer in men and women who never smoked.
Dentists have an oral cancer screening which should be done yearly, involves a mouthrinse and using a special UV or other lighted scope to detect early malignancies in the mouth.
A newer one uses just a scope. This is beyond the touch and feel method used on the neck and jaw.
I know someone who died from this, felt something on the tongue, ignored it, grew fast, from jaw, waited too long for operation and radiation.
How Gardasil May Protect Guys
Studies from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere show that HPV may be the cause of one-quarter to one-third of oral and throat cancers, probably transmitted when partners engage in oral sex. Robert Wallach, an oncologist at the New York University Cancer Institute, said the data is too vague to say that's the only way the virus could move to your mouth.
"It's a reasonable assumption to think that a social kiss, even if it's not a torrid affair, could potentially spread the virus to the head and neck," he says.
Wallach supports the potential vaccination of men because of HPV's confirmed part in some rarer cancers, including cancers of the penis.
"It's a rare enough disease that you can't market the drug for that, but it's a good idea and it would protect," he says.
Wallach says the virus could potentially be contributing to other cancers or might be a factor that combines with other risks to trigger the disease.
"Cancer's not always a one-bullet disease," he says. "Most head and neck cancers are associated with smoking. But it may be you need the smoking with the exposure to the virus."
There are about 100 HPV strains, numbered for identification. Gardasil targets two that cause cancer and two that cause genital warts.
"Most people, if they have been infected with one strain, haven't been infected with all four," says Merck spokeswoman Jennifer Allen. "It can't provide treatment and can't prevent you from getting an infection you already have. But it can prevent patients from getting the other strains.
http://www.menshealth.com/health/womens ... care-about
ERIC STATLER'S WISDOM teeth were impacted. Inconvenient, sure, but certainly not life threatening. As general manager of a hotel in Idaho's picturesque Clearwater County, Statler spent his 12-hour days charming and chatting up guests, which meant he couldn't afford a week of bloated cheeks and Percocet. Nor, given his myriad responsibilities at the hotel, did Statler feel he could justify time off for at-home recovery. So he procrastinated until the pain was almost unbearable and eating a turkey sandwich felt like chewing tacks.
Two months after he finally underwent the operation, Statler was still waiting for relief—his molars were gone but the pain remained. Not only did he find it excruciating to chew, but now he was losing weight and beginning to feel emotionally beat down. He decided to return to his dentist, who sent him to a local ear, nose, and throat specialist the same day. The ENT needed just minutes to solve the mystery: He took one look at Statler and said, "Son, I think you have cancer."
Statler couldn't believe it. A former college athlete, he still ran nearly every day, never smoked, and drank only a few beers a week.
"My wife used to say I was the healthiest man she'd ever known," he says. The average oral cancer patient, by contrast, is a lifelong smoker or heavy drinker in his mid-60s.
But the definition of "average" has slowly been changing, as more and more oral cancer diagnoses are being handed down across the country to otherwise healthy young men. Statler soon learned that he was part of this emerging subset of oral cancer patients, a group of guys who all share one unlikely risk factor: HPV, an undetectable and untreatable STD that may act like tinder for tumors.
http://www.menshealth.com/health/sex-cancer
Susan