My fabulous Canadian news maven, a frequent contributor of ideas for this blog, recently pointed me towards an article discussing a preliminary study on whether HPV might be a risk factor for some lung cancers. It's certainly a plausible relationship, as HPV has been linked to oral and throat cancers as well as cervical, rectal and other genital cancers, although it would be shocking if it was anywhere near as important a risk factor as smoking. The main question would seem to be how HPV would get into lung tissue, and it would not be unreasonable to believe that some virus could be aspirated during oral sex.
That said, although I've seen several "Could the HPV vaccine prevent lung cancer?" articles discussing this study, that sort of speculation is coming from pretty far out in left field. The researchers did find that people with lung cancer carried more types of HPV, and in particular more high-risk types of HPV, than people without lung cancer, but that is a long way from proving that it's HPV that caused those cancers. A great deal of future research needs to be done before any clear role for HPV in lung cancer can be concluded. It could turn out that HPV predisposes individuals to cancer, but it takes other exposures such as smoking to actually cause disease. It could turn out that HPV is the real culprit for a small but significant portion of cancers. Or, it could turn out that HPV has nothing to do with lung cancer at all, and the increased number of viruses seen in cancer patients is unrelated to their disease. Right now, all we know is that people with lung cancers carry more types of HPV.
For that matter, reading between the lines of the news articles, I suspect that you can't even say that HPV is more common in people with lung cancer, just that they carry more types of the virus. That brings up some very interesting questions, and I can't wait to see the actual data once it's available. These were just meeting results rather than a journal publication, so I've been forced to base my writing on coverage rather than the primary source material.
April is National STD Awareness Month. If you’re living with Herpes, HPV, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis or other STDs, you’re invited to join HDate.org, the Official STD Support & Dating site.
It offers people with STD unique and safe environment to learn STD medical treatments, get help and advice, find trusted people to talk, meet new friends and partners. All personal information is private and anonymous.