Oral Sex and Throat Cancer Link – A Report

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The news about study conducted and report published by certain well known and well respected research bodies linking Oral Sex and Throat Cancer, is spreading and splashing across the net and doing crazy rounds.

The findings at Johns Hopkins University confirm that oral sex is a risk factor for throat cancer, although the risk may be relatively small. They found a link between HPV and Throat Cancer. The study is being published in the latest edition of The New England Journal of Medicine.

They studied and tested by taking 200 healthy people and 100 persons who were diagnosed with throat cancer and this study found that by having multiple vaginal sex partners over a course of a lifetime (more than 26 vaginal sex partners) is linked to higher risk of development of throat cancer. People who have multiple oral sex partners (count higher than 5) were three times more at risk of developing oral or throat cancer than people who do not have multiple oral sex partners.

Throat cancer is strongly linked with HPV-16 - the same virus strain that is also linked cervical cancer amongst the women folks. The study also reported that heavy, chain smoking and consuming alcohol in excess might not increase the risk of throat cancer for people with HPV, even though both are risk factors for the throat cancer.

It is worth keeping in mind that people not indulging in smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol are also at a risk of developing throat cancer if they indulge in oral sex with multiple partners.

The study however does not suggest that one should abstain from oral sex but practicing safe oral sex and having limited partners can prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases to a great extent. The study also suggested that oral sex was the main mode of HPV infection being transferred from one person to the other but the researchers also said mouth-to-mouth transmission through kissing could not altogether be ruled out.

Experts and fellow researchers do feel that more studies are required to be done in this area before confirming these findings 100 percent. To confirm this link of throat and rare type of cancer - oral cancer more study and detailed research is required to be done.