how many licks does it take?

i was skeptical when i heard about oral sex leading to throat cancer.  that means we are ALL going to get throat cancer.  right?!  i became even more skeptical when my girlfriend annelise, who is a pharmacist, hadn't heard of this research.

thanks to google scholar i have, unfortunately, confirmed the rumor.

maura l. gillison, md, phd, of johns hopkins university in baltimore is a longtime researcher of the hpv virus.  she first found the correlation between head/neck cancer and oral hpv infection in 2000.  since then, dozens of other studies have shown the same finding.  we appear to have a consensus.  more recent research has been examining the behaviors that contribute to risk.  longtime heavy tobacco and alcohol use are among the strongest identified risk factors for head and neck cancer.  but hpv is a stronger risk factor for oropharyngeal cancer, specifically.  gillison says this type accounts for about one in four head and neck cancers.  and having multiple oral sex partners topped the list of practices associated with an increased risk of developing orophyngeal cancer according to the study published in the May 2010 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

it is unclear whether the hpv vaccine will prevent hpv-driven throat cancer as it does for cervical cancer, but there is every reason to think it will, according to gillison.

the good news is that this is an uncommon cancer, so individual risk is quite low.  but, you can always choose safe oral sex.