Experts have called for the HPV vaccine to be offered to gay men as a way of curbing cancer rates.
The UK vaccination programme against the HPV infection began in 2008, but only among girls, on the grounds that this would curb the spread of the infection to boys as well.
But doctors at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Homerton University Hospital, and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, said gay men are more than 15 times as likely to develop genital cancer as a result of becoming infected with HPV.
The UK vaccination programme against HPV began in 2008, but only among girls, on the grounds that this would help to curb the spread of infection to boys too
While rates of anal cancers are higher among men who are also HIV positive - despite antiretroviral treatment - they are also higher among gay men who have not been infected with HIV, said the authors.
Australian research has shown that HPV vaccination of girls has had an impact on the rates of genital warts in heterosexual men, but that there has been no such change in prevalence among gay men, according to a report by MedicalXpress.
Recent research has shown that the HPV jab is effective in men, including gay men. The vaccine covers HPV 16 and 18, the two strains of the virus which cause most of the cancers associated with the infection.
HPV causes genital warts and is associated with a higher risk of genital as well as head and neck cancers
The vaccine is most effective in those who are not already infected with these strains of HPV, but evidence has shown that only a minority of young gay men are, and that the strategy to vaccinate a group that includes those who have already been exposed to these strains is cost effective.
Data from the UK's Health Protection Agency (now part of Public Health England) has shown that fewer than one in 20 men under the age of 25 has been infected by any high risk HPV strain.
In 2010, 17,000 gay men between the ages of 16 and 26 visited sexual health clinics in England.
Experts said that HPV vaccination would help prioritise initiatives to improve access to services for this group, who remain vulnerable to HIV infection.
'In the light of this evidence, and in the absence of universal vaccination of boys, the argument for introducing targeted HPV vaccination for [men who have sex with men] up to age 26 years is strong,' they concluded.
WHAT IS THE HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS?
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is spread through sexual contact and is more usually associated with cervical cancer in women. It is the most commonly sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.
HPV can be passed between men and women by genital contact, most often during vaginal and anal sex.
It may also be passed on during oral sex and genital-to-genital contact. It can be passed on between straight and same-sex partners—even when the infected person has no signs or symptoms.
The cervical cancer jab given to 12 and 13-year-old schoolgirls aims to cut their odds of the cancer by protecting them against the virus.
Although most mouth and throat cancers are normally blamed on drinking and smoking an increasing number of cases that occur around the tonsils and back of the tongue are due to HPV.
Although the cancer is not contagious, the virus is.
In the US, HPV is blamed for up to 80 per cent of these tumours of the tonsils and the back of the tongue, which experts say could be due to increasing popularity of oral sex.
The typical patient is described as an otherwise healthy man in his late 40s or early 50s who has never smoked or smoked very little.
In Britain, the number of mouth and throat cancers have increased by 40 per cent in just a decade, to 6,200 cases a year.
Cancer Research UK says the HPV virus may be key to the ‘rapid rise’.
Symptoms include persistent mouth ulcers, pain, discoloured patches and difficulty chewing and swallowing.
Men are advised to check their neck for lumps when shaving and both sexes to look at the back of their throat while brushing their teeth.
Treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery are often more successful in mouth and throat cancers caused by the virus than those caused by tobacco and alcohol.
Although mouth cancer can be caused by HPV passed on by oral sex, doctors say Michael Douglas’s claim that oral sex is also a cure doesn’t make any medical sense.
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