Hi!

I have a question. I saw recommendation in another thread:

[quote=davidcpa]
Are you/were you a tobacco user? If not I would want to be tested for the HPV virus in your cancer.
[/quote]

Question: what if the person does have the HPV virus - does affect how the OC will be treated? I know there is a new vaccine for certain HPV strains now available for women. But I thought that HPV cannot really be treated anyway, especially in men. So I am curious what difference this diagnosis would make for someone diagnozed with OC.

Thanks

There is a recent study that concluded that HVP+ SCC responds better to current treatment and therefore has less of a reoccurrence rate than HPV- SCC. There has also been some discussions of late saying than a less toxic treatment may be suitable for HPV related cancer than non HPV and I believe this topic will be discussed this year at a NCI meeting. But for now anyone Dx'ed with HPV+ SCC will be given the same treatment as HPV- SCC but may expect a better outcome.

I will say that I was not a smoker and was a social drinker and 2 years ago when HPV was not well known in the OC community I was told that tobacco caused my cancer and it upset me to think that it was responsible and I had avoided it just for that reason. I did my research and finally got Moffitt to send my slides to Johns Hopkins after my treatment was completed and my positive test at least made me better knowing what caused my cancer and that it was not tobacco.