Oral Sex Is Apparently the Main Culprit in the Rise of Throat Cancers Today

We are in the middle of an epidemic of throat cancer these days, according to Dr. Hisham Mehanna, a professor at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences at the University of Birmingham. The disease has become more rampant in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the rest of the West. Apparently, the culprit is none other than, well, oral sex.

But it goes much deeper than that. Mehanna says that there has been a rapid increase in a specific type of throat cancer. Oropharyngeal cancer is a kind of cancer that affects the tonsils and back of the throat. What causes this cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV).

“For oropharyngeal cancer, the main risk factor is the number of lifetime sexual partners, especially oral sex,” he wrote for The Conversation.

Research from the American Cancer Society suggests that HPV-linked oropharyngeal cancer rose by 1.3 percent for women and 2.8 percent for men between 2015 and 2019. In the U.S., nearly 70 percent of oropharyngeal cancers are reportedly caused by HPV infection. HPVs happen to be one of the most common sexually transmitted infections for Americans.

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Even more troubling is that researchers have also concluded that those who've had 10 or more oral sex partners are four times more likely to get this specific kind of throat cancer. The doctor's research also shows that individuals with six or more lifetime oral sex partners are 8.5 times more likely to develop oropharyngeal cancer as compared to those who don't engage in oral sex at all.

"The prevailing theory is that most of us catch HPV infections and can clear them completely," Mehanna added. "However, a small number of people are not able to get rid of the infection, maybe due to a defect in a particular aspect of their immune system."