HPV and Cancer: How Are They Related?
HPV and Cancer: How Are They Related?
There are many different types of HPV infection over 250 types! The vast majority of these are harmless. Most cause no signs or symptoms, and go away by themselves untreated. A few cause warts to appear on hands, feet, knees, elbows or genitals: and as embarrassing as the warts may be, they go away in time as well, and cause no permanent harm to the human body.
But there are a few types in the 250 strains of HPV that do cause conditions that lead to cancer. It is important to know about these and understand the ways in which cancer-causing strains of HPV are transmitted, so that you can best prevent life-threatening disease in yourself.
The strains of HPV that are related to cancer are all sexually-transmitted forms of the virus. None of them carry symptoms. This means that you might be infected with one of these strains for several years or even decades, and then the first sign of HPV infection that you notice is a cancer symptom! For this reason, it is good for you to be aware of HPV and the ways in which you can protect yourself not only from initial infection with the virus, but from cancerous states from developing as years pass.
The big problem comes from the fact that so much of the population that is sexually active carries the HPV virus as some point, and that many of us will carry it at some point in our lives. Many of us will carry it and never know; it will clear itself up and leave no sign of harm. But for some of us, it can lead to cancer.
TheHPV virus can lie dormant for many years before it leads to a cancerous condition. As it lies dormant, it can leave the immune system weakened and susceptible to various serious conditions, including those which are precancerous. After some years, pre-cancerous conditions develop when the virus attacks skin cells outside and inside your body, such as cells on the skin of your penis or vulva. It attacks skin cells that line the vagina or the anus. When the HPV virus has been acquired during oral sex, it might attack the lining of the throat and lungs.
The HPV virus, when it attacks skin cells, causes changes in those cells like the changes that cause common warts. The cells mutate and form misshapen masses. These masses over time can become lesions and tumorous masses, that become full-blown cancer and spread to other areas of the body. But if these masses are caught early, their development into cancer, and the cancer's spread, can be halted before it becomes life-threatening.
This is why regular health checks are so important. Any woman who has ever had sex should be checked routinely for precancerous cells of the cervix, with a pap test. Every year, about 12,000 women in the U.S. alone are diagnosed with cervical cancer. In a given year, between 3,000 and 4,000 of these women will die of the disease. It is believed that in about 70% of these cases, the original cause of the cancer to the cervix was HPV!
Women can prevent much of the risk presented by the strains of HPV which cause cervical cancers, by being vaccinated against these strains. Two vaccines are now available Gardasil and Cervarix. Both target specifically the strains of HPV that can lead to cancer of the cervix. Talk to your doctor about how they can protect you too!
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