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Oral sex, cancer and death: sexually transmitted cancers

Tahwinder Upile1,2*, Waseem Jerjes3,4,5,6, Mohammed Al-Khawalde7, Hani Radhi3,4* and Holger Sudhoff8

Author Affiliations

1 Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Chase Farm & Barnet NHS Trust, Enfield, UK

2 Head & Neck Unit, University College London Hospital, London, UK

3 Department of Surgery, School of Dentistry, Al-Yarmouk University College, Baghdad, Iraq

4 Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Unit, AL-Mustansirya University’s, Baghdad, Iraq

5 UCL Department of Surgery, University College London, London, UK

6 Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, Leeds, UK

7 Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Unit, Royal Medical Services, Amman, Jordan

8 Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Academic Teaching Hospital of University of Münster, Bielefeld, Germany

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Head & Neck Oncology 2012, 4:31 doi:10.1186/1758-3284-4-31

Published: 6 June 2012

Abstract

We briefly highlight the growing body of recent evidence linking unprotected oral sex with the development of some types of head and neck cancer in younger patients. These tumours appear to be increasing in incidence although the development of more sensitive methods of HPV detection may be a confounding factor.