The leading cause of tonsil cancer is tobacco use, but Bolnick, who is married with two kids, didn't smoke. His doctor told him that his cancer was caused by human papilloma virus, or HPV. It was only three years earlier that Maura Gillison, now a professor of internal medicine at Ohio State, published the results of a seven-year-long population study that discovered people with head and neck cancer were 15 times more likely to be infected with HPV in their mouths or throats than those without. [...]
HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the US—there are more than 100 types, though not all cause health problems. But today, more and more people, predominantly men, are being diagnosed with oral HPV-related cancer. That's not surprising, since a recent report from the CDC found that between 2011 and 2014, more men (6.8 percent) than women (1.2 percent) had high-risk oral HPV, or a strain of HPV known to cause cancer. Within 20 years, health experts expect the majority of head and neck cancers to be caused by HPV-positive carcinomas instead of smoking and alcohol, and by 2020, the rates of HPV-related oropharyngeal (area encompassing the throat, tonsils, and back of the tongue)cancer will surpass those of cervical cancer. [...]
Currently, the only way to safeguard from developing any HPV-positive cancer—whether it's oral, cervical, penile, or anal—is to be vaccinated. But the vaccine only works for people who have not been exposed to the virus yet, and about 14 million people become infected with some form of it each year. That's why the age requirements are fairly young: The CDC recommends the HPV vaccine for young women at age 11 or 12, through 26, and for young men through 21.
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