Consultant urologist Dr George Lee Eng Geap, or a.k.a Dr G, answers queries from a reader enquiring about the danger of human papillomavirus (HPV) poses to men in causing oropharyngeal cancer.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Last week, we talked about cancers such as cervical cancer
00:04This week, we're going to talk about some other organ
00:07which is also infected by such sexually transmitted infection of HPV
00:12causing a oral pharyngeal cancer
00:22So, oral pharyngeal cancer, as the name suggests
00:26that it is actually a cancer arising from the pharynx
00:29and also the mouth
00:32It itself is quite curious
00:33It's because it's also caused by HPV, predominantly HPV-16
00:39So, how does it get there?
00:41Some people believe that it's due to oral sexual activity
00:45and that itself will transmit the virus to the oral pharyngeal area
00:49And the most famous person apparently had oral pharyngeal cancer
00:54and probably related to HPV
00:57is somebody who is called Michael Douglas
01:00So, is this really caused by HPV?
01:04We shall never find out
01:06It's because it's obviously confidential
01:09But what does oral pharyngeal cancer cause?
01:12HPV can actually induce cancerous changes in the oral pharyngeal area
01:18Interestingly, this is more common in countries
01:22such as high-resource countries as USA, Europe, Australia and New Zealand
01:29Nobody knows why
01:31However, we believe that when cervical cancer actually is under control
01:37then oral pharyngeal cancer will steadily go up
01:40It's because there's no screening
01:42and also perhaps men in many of these countries are not protected
01:47In fact, the prevalence of oral pharyngeal cancer
01:50is about three to four times higher in men as compared to women
01:55I think that probably is also related to other things
01:58such as high prevalence of smoking and also alcohol consumption
02:03that will make somebody who's infected with HPV-16 more prone to such cancer
02:09Majority of these patients after diagnosis will require some form of treatment
02:14That may include radiotherapy for example
02:16and following that, most people hopefully discovered early
02:20and will make full recovery
02:22For following week, we are going to talk about
02:24how HPV can induce another form of cancer which is anal cancer
02:31So can the anus itself have cancer?
02:34You need to find out
02:35Stay tuned for next week's Putting Dr. G on the Spot