It is not standard procedure, and whether you are positive or not for it does not impact the treatment plan that you undergo. For the most part it is an academic issue once you have cancer. Getting testing for it now would not help or change things for you in any way. Further, except for a finding of
HPV in the tumor itself, (which might be of interest to the doctors for statistical reasons) if it is was surgically removed, many people's bodies have the ability to shed and rid themselves of the virus. The mechanism by which this happens is not understood at this time. Meaning that it could or could not have been a precipitating factor to malignancy. Essentially what that means is that if you were a "never-smoker" and you got this disease you may know what the mechanism was that brought you to OC, but that information would be of no real use to you. If you were a smoker,
HPV still could have been a cofactor or a facilitator in the process. Again UBIF...useless but interesting facts. There are literally thousands of peer reviewed published article on the relationship between
HPV and oral cancer as well as it's primary malignancy cervical cancer. While this data has lead to a vaccine soon to be released for the prevention of cervical cancer (and to some unknown extent the reduction of head and neck cancers) what we know about it is dwarfed by what we do not know about it. Researches have been working on this topic for decades. One of the most prominent and published of these researchers is Dr. Maura Gillison at Johns Hopkins, who is on the OCF science advisory board. We have put up the usable information out of all the
HPV data on the site, but there is much more what is known but for which will not help patients in any manner. Even in our "what you need to know about oral cancer" brochure that we provide to doctor and dentist offices for their regular patients to read, we list
HPV as one of the risk factors along with tobacco and high alcohol consumption as a primary risk factor...unfortunately it is also the one that you can do nothing about, except perhaps limit the number of sexual partners in your life.
