Throat cancer caused by the papillomavirus
Madrid, February 17 (efesalud.com). Around 20 to 30% of the population is infected with the human papillomavirus (HPV), although the vast majority will not develop serious secondary illnesses. Even so, a very small number of people will develop HPV-related throat cancer, a diagnosis that always causes great shock.
“If receiving a cancer diagnosis is already difficult, this tragedy is compounded by a major shock when a patient is told they have an oropharyngeal tumor due to the papillomavirus,” says María Jesús Romero Santos, president of the Spanish Association of Head and Neck Cancer Patients (APC).
“In fact, most of them cannot understand, or even imagine, how this virus, usually associated with cervical cancer, can cause cancer in the throat,” she explains.
“And many are stigmatized,” he says. “They don’t want to hear or talk about this monstrous tumor. They isolate themselves and refuse to acknowledge publicly, even within their families, that they are suffering from cancer caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV).”
According to figures published in the 2023 report by the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM), cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx are estimated at 7,882 new cases, and laryngeal cancers at another 3,378, totaling 11,260 malignant neoplasms for this year.
“The vast majority of these tumors will be caused by tobacco and alcohol consumption, but 20% of them will originate from HPV, almost all in the oropharyngeal area,” emphasizes Dr. Pedro Pérez Segura, head of the Medical Oncology Department at the San Carlos University Clinical Hospital.
In 2021, 1,201 new cases of head and neck cancer were registered in the Community of Madrid.
“At our center, for example, between 60 and 70 cases of head and neck cancer are diagnosed and treated annually; of these, 20% are secondary to HPV or the combination of this microorganism with the destructive effects of smoking on these areas of the body,” he points out.
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