I am sure this study will show up in the Oral Cancer in the News section of the main site, but thought I'd highlight this Bloomberg News article that just moved on the wire:

[quote] BC-POT-SMOKING-ORAL-SEX-CANCER-STUDY
Pot Smoking, Oral Sex Linked to Virus-Related Cancer in Study
c.2008 Bloomberg News
By Elizabeth Lopatto
March 11 (Bloomberg) -- People who didn't smoke cigarettes and did smoke pot for at least five years were 11 times more likely to develop head and neck cancer from the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, scientists found.

Having more sexual partners, participating in casual sex at least once and having had at least one sexually transmitted disease were also risk factors for cancers caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV. Patients whose cancer tested positive for HPV were also likelier to be white, married, college- educated people who made $50,000 a year or more.

These patients also tended to be younger than patients whose oral cancer wasn't caused by HPV, according to a study of 240 patients. The different risk factors mean that HPV-caused cancers should be considered separate maladies, even though the location is the same, the researchers said in the March 12 Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

There's bias in this new piece and Gillison and I have discussed it. The correlation with HPV is the number of sexual partners not pot. One possible bias is people that have multiple sexual partners might also be people that at pot users or whatever. The study does not draw a link between pot and HPV, they could just as easily be non connected behaviors in people in the study. I think it would be fair to say that a long term pot user might also be a person who had many sexual relationships during those years as well. That is NOT the same as saying that the use of pot makes you more susceptible to HPV. When you get into small studies that look at behaviors and try to correlate them with disease progression it is a road full of potholes. This kind of bias has been obvious is eating studies and others.

please note this study also out recently

Smoking marijuana doesn't seem to cause oral cancer
By Helen Fields
4/14/05

Marijuana smoke, like tobacco smoke, contains many carcinogens. Researchers in Seattle looked at whether it increases the risk of oral cancer.
What the researchers wanted to know: Does smoking marijuana increase the risk for oral cancer?

What they did: The researchers used 407 people between 18 and 65 years old who lived in one of three counties around Puget Sound, in Washington State, and had been diagnosed with oral squamous cell carcinoma

Thanks for the clarification, Brian.

Here's part of the Reuters story (you can see the whole thing on Google News), which is far more in keeping with the conclusions of the journal article:
[quote] CANCER-HEAD/
BC-CANCER-HEAD/
Factors behind head and neck cancer revealed
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters)

This could easily be used for Tequila as well. It make you clothes fall off too.

Everybody has an angle and you make make statistics lie for you or against you. It is too easy for some of these people to get too close to the tree and not be able to see the forest.

Kevin.... I thought gin did that??
M

[quote=Markus]Kevin.... I thought gin did that??
M [/quote]

Yeh, they never bother to test the tumors of us smoker/drinker types. Just assume it is the tobacco/alcohol rather than HPV connection. And the marijuana itself may be less harmful than tobacco, but you still have to same burning paper and heat in your mouth so I don't see much difference but I guess you are not going to smoke 3 packs of day of marijuana.

Take care,
Eileen

3 packs a day... probably not unless you are really really dedicated. (and have a large larder)
But you would still have tar condensation products and a hundreds of combustion products. However there are probably alternative ways of ingesting this.

LOL too funny! Perhaps you should post this under the thread regarding appetite stimulant

LOL @ Kevin.

What about my cancer, i feel left out, mine was caused by genes no HPV and not a heavy drinker or smoker, apprently i was just "unlucky" to get oral cancer, i always wanted to ask what cancer i should feel lucky about getting...???

and Bacardi black also makes your clothes fall off...so im told ;0)

Debz

I completed my treatment over a year ago, but I am now beginning to suspect a connection with HPV. This was never mentioned to me by any of my doctors. Is there some stage of diagnosis/treatment where this might be tested for? If I am HPV positive, does it continue to be active in my mouth and possibly cause another tumor? Any information would be appreciated.

We would all like to have definitive answers to these very same questions. Some of the donation money that comes to OCF is being spent at Johns Hopkins right now to try and get preliminary ideas about some of this.

The only time they could have told for sure if the lesion was HPV positive was in a biopsy of any removed tissue.

Debz,

Gotta ask...who told you about the genes theory and what exactly did they say?

[quote=auntypebbles]LOL @ Kevin.

What about my cancer, i feel left out, mine was caused by genes
[/quote]

Deb, you and I are in the same boat. Mine has also been classified as genetic. My mom was diagnosed and treated with thyroid cancer when she was 15 (1940). 16 years later when I came along, more thyroid cancer resulting in removal. She passed in 2006 while I was enduring my treatments at the ripe old age of 81, but only after going thru 5 more bouts with the disease. So genetically, I am definitely in the hot seat.

Kevin

Tonight the entire article from the Journal of the National Cancer institute will be available on the OCF HPV page for reading.

Risk Factor Profiles related to HPV status, Dr. Gillison et.al. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, March 2008 (PDF)

It is always interesting to me that we as a culture or a species so want to know everything. I'm as guilty of it as the next person and it was driving my husband crazy - constantly trying to figure out what he may have done... Our MO told us this is a fluke, a lightning strike and we just have to accept and move on to battle phase. So that's what we are doing. Not only is acinic cell rare, but having it be aggressive and moderate grade is even more rare. I can't even find people with this cancer, much less research on it - so we have to stick with the lightning strike theory :-)

Well thank GOD that marijuana is off the hook! I was sweating that one ;-) Darrel Rakestraw (God bless his soul) would have approved as well.