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New study links HPV to oropharyngeal cancer

People who are infected with one strain of the human papilloma virus (HPV) are more likely to contract certain throat cancers, Medical News Today reported.

In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers sought to identify how the presence of the HPV 16 virus – one of 200 strains of HPV – was associated with the occurrence of throat cancers.

To do this, researchers looked for the presence of antibodies to the E6 protein, which is indicative of HPV 16 infection, in pre-diagnosis blood samples from 938 patients with oesophageal (gullet) and oropharyngeal (throat) cancers. These results were then compared with blood samples taken from 1,599 healthy people.

Researchers concluded that over a third of people with oropharyngeal cancers had antibodies to E6, compared to fewer than 1 percent of the people in the control group, according to researchers.

Based on these findings, the study’s authors estimate that 7 percent of non-smoking women and 23 percent of non-smoking men with E6 antibodies in their bloodstream will develop oropharyngeal cancer within 10 years, according to Medical News Today.

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