Tobacco Use May Increase Risk of Oral HPV16

Tobacco Use May Increase Risk of Oral HPV16

Tobacco use has myriad deleterious effects on all aspects of health, most of which are widely understood. A new study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reveals a lesser-known risk of tobacco use—infection with oral human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16), a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cancers of the mouth and throat. The findings, published in the October Journal of the American Medical Association, theorize that the risk of HPV16 infection rises with an increase in tobacco use.

Led by Carole Fakhry, MD, an assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, researchers collected data on 6,887 subjects who took part in the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Of the 2,012 participants who reported using tobacco—including cigarettes, chew, snuff, and pipe tobacco—it was discovered that 63 subjects were also infected with HPV16. Among this group, blood level measurements of cotinine (a byproduct of tobacco use) amounting to the equivalent of three cigarettes per day raised the risk of infection by 31%, the team notes. Urinary biomarkers for tobacco were also analyzed, and researchers report that levels equaling four cigarettes per day elevated the risk to 68%.

“This study highlights the need to understand the effect of tobacco on HPV16 infection,” says Fakhry. But while the numbers demonstrate this association, the ability to understand the relationship between tobacco use and HPV16 remains complex. According to the researchers, HPV16, which is transmitted to the oral cavity through oral sex, is linked to 80% of oropharyngeal cancers “These results,” she says, “may provide an additional reason for smoking cessation, and suggest that even modest amounts of tobacco use are associated with higher prevalence of oral HPV infection.”

Hygiene Connection E-Newsletter

November 2014