Oral tumors affect more than smokers
Cancer Doctors blaming another risky behavior

ST. LOUIS — Ten years ago, most of Dr. Brian Nussenbaum’s oral cancer patients were men over 60 who used tobacco and drank heavily.

Today, his patients with oral cancer look different. And so does the risky behavior that seems to be leading to their cancer.

Nussenbaum, an ear nose throat doctor at Washington University, estimates that 70 percent of his cancer patients have tumors on the back of their tongues and tonsils caused by human papillomavirus-16. Most of those patients are between ages 45 and 55. About half are women.

And experts suspect that all of them — men and women — got HPV from oral sex.

"We know now that 98 percent of cervical cancer is caused by HPV, and mostly HPV-16,” says Nussenbaum. "But no one talks about how you can also get mouth cancer from it.”

Nussenbaum says a lot of doctors spend very little time, if any, discussing the cancer’s link to oral sex. The only good news is that the tumors are highly sensitive to radiation and chemotherapy.

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