Oropharyngeal Cancer Epidemic and HPV | CDC EID

A growing body of research shows that human papillomavirus (HPV) is a common and increasing cause of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Thus, the International Agency for Research against Cancer has acknowledged HPV as a risk factor for OSCC, in addition to smoking and alcohol consumption. Recently, in Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States, and Sweden, incidence of OSCC has increased, and an increase in the proportion of HPV-positive tumors was noted. On the basis of these data and reports indicating that patients with HPV-positive cancer have their first sexual experience at a young age and have multiple partners, we postulate that increased incidence of OSCC in the United States and some countries in northern Europe is because of a new, primarily sexually transmitted HPV epidemic. We also suggest that individualized treatment modalities and preventive vaccination should be further explored. In many countries, vaccines against some human papillomavirus (HPV) types are now administered to girls and young women with the goal of protecting them against HPV-induced cervical cancer (1,2). The introduction of HPV vaccines has also drawn more attention to the fact that HPV is associated not only with cervical cancer and genital warts but also with other tumors, such as head neck and anogenital cancers (3). We focus on the role of HPV in the increased incidence of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), the head and neck cancer in which HPV is most commonly found (4). Head and neck cancer most commonly is of the squamous cell carcinoma type (HNSCC) and includes cancers of the oral cavity, oropharynx, hypopharynx, larynx, sinonasal tract, and nasopharynx. HNSCC is the sixth most common type of cancer in the world; almost 600,000 cases are reported annually, and of these, ≈10% (or more for some geographic locations) are OSCC (5). Globally, the incidence and localization of HNSCC varies widely. It is the most common form of cancer in India, and incidence is higher in countries in Journal