"Men who kneel down and lick your lips" are susceptible to HPV infection, so vaccination is necessary!

In our subconscious, HPV vaccine is used to prevent cervical cancer in women and has nothing to do with men.

In fact, men may also be infected with HPV. In addition to inducing cervical cancer in women, this type of virus is also the culprit for a variety of diseases shared by both men and women, including genital warts, oropharyngeal cancer, anal cancer, etc.

There are more than 200 subtypes of HPV.

The figure shows the relatively common subtypes and the diseases they are likely to cause

Men have a two-fold increased risk of HPV-related mouth and throat cancer compared to women.

A research article in the Journal of the American Medical Association once pointed out that in the United States and many Western countries, almost 2/3 of oral cancers are directly related to infection with HPV 16 subtype strains.

HPV is becoming the new culprit of oropharyngeal cancer, and the reason is - oral sexual contact.

Oropharyngeal cancer is a type of head and neck cancer that occurs in the base of the tongue, tonsils, soft palate, and posterior pharyngeal wall.

In the past, smoking and drinking were the main causes of the disease, and patients tended to develop the disease at an older age.

However, with the promotion of the anti-smoking and alcohol restriction campaign in the whole society, the overall incidence of oropharyngeal cancer is slowly declining. However, the number of young patients caused by HPV infection is increasing.

Analysis of data from the U.S. Cancer Registry Database shows

Between 2002 and 2012, the incidence of head and neck cancer decreased by 0.22% per year, but the incidence of HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer increased by 2.5% per year.

Modern people are very playful, and oral sex is increasing. However, oral sex can lead to the spread of HPV virus, causing chronic infection and inflammation, which in turn can lead to cell canceration and eventually develop into oral cancer.

Epidemiological survey

At present, China lacks epidemiological investigations on HPV-induced oropharyngeal cancer, but clues can be glimpsed from research data from Zhang Bin, director of the Department of Head and Neck Surgery at Peking University Cancer Hospital, and others: by analyzing 66 oropharyngeal cancer patients between 1999 and 2009, it was found that 16.7% of the patients were carriers of the HPV virus.

According to rough estimates, among the oropharyngeal cancer patients admitted to Zhang Bin’s hospital in recent years, one-third were caused by HPV.

Clinically, oropharyngeal cancer caused by HPV infection is indeed on the rise.

In recent years, HPV has been considered the fourth confirmed carcinogenic factor for oropharyngeal cancer after tobacco, alcohol and betel nut.

Harald zur Hausen, the father of the HPV vaccine, once recommended that men should also be vaccinated with HPV vaccine.

Because he believes that men usually have more sexual contact than women in their lifetime and are the main spreaders of HPV virus. Vaccination can protect both themselves and their partners.

Research data

The Journal of the American Medical Association published research data from the MD Anderson Cancer Center: Between 2009 and 2016, as HPV vaccination rates for men and women in the United States increased, the infection rate for HPV subtypes covered by the vaccine among unvaccinated men dropped from 2.7% to 1.6%, significantly reducing the risk of infection by 37%.

However, the infection rate of HPV subtypes not covered by the vaccine remained unchanged over the past seven years.

In other words, mass vaccination of HPV can reduce the risk of oral HPV infection in men.

Conversely, men should also be vaccinated to protect women.

Although there is currently no clear evidence showing how effective HPV vaccination is in preventing cervical cancer in men's sexual partners, it is also impossible to predict how effective it is in preventing laryngeal cancer.

Because the HPV vaccine is designed to prevent cervical cancer, although it covers HPV type 16, which also causes oropharyngeal cancer, it is not specifically designed to prevent oropharyngeal cancer.

These still need time and data to verify.

HPV vaccination for men

However, some European and American countries have begun to promote HPV vaccination for men. In 2019, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report calling for an increase in the national HPV vaccination rate to 80%, and recommended that all children aged 11 to 12 be vaccinated with HPV vaccine.

The British government has also stated that it will vaccinate male children with HPV vaccine, and it is expected that this move will reduce 100,000 cancer cases in the UK in the next 40 years.

So, don’t think that HPV is exclusive to women. Men should also get the HPV vaccine for themselves and for her.

| Cover and text source: Internet |