Welcome to the support group. OCF has been involved in the research of the oral aspects of HPV infections since 1999 when a research collaborator of ours Dr. Maura Gillison first laid out the evidence that HPV was driving the rapid growth in oral cancers, specifically oropharyngeal cancers. So from a science perspective, this has been historically one of the foundations strengths. There is a ton of information on our main web site about all this both our writings and also lots if links to the solid information the CDC and others have put out. That section of our site is at this link

https://oralcancerfoundation.org/understanding/HPV/

There are also the full science articles as published in respected peer reviewed science journals for those that want to get every detail in the research section of our web site in chronological order as they were funded, understood, and published if someone really wants to understand things at that level.

https://oralcancerfoundation.org/research/

So to your specific question. HPV is not a systemic infection. It does not travel from the cervical area for instance to the oral environment through some pathway or mechanism in your body. Each site that is known to be vulnerable to infection requires it’s own exposure.

Testing positive for HPV in a cervical exam is not a predictor that you will get oral or oropharynx HPV etiology cancer. But it is possible to pass the virus to a sexual partner while that infection is active. The important thing to remember is that the vast majority of men and women that get an active infection DO NOT subsequently get a cancer from it. The virus is ubiquitous in our world. Pretty much everyone that is sexually active will get an infection early in their sexual lives mostly in their teens and twenties. But 99% of those that get infected will have an immune system that will recognize this threat and destroy the infection. Only about 1% of individuals have an immune system that will fail to recognize it and then it will ultimately over many years, decades even in oropharynx cancer, prosper into an actual malignancy.

With the changing of sexual behaviors that occurred starting in the 1960s, this became an increasing problem particularly in oropharynx cancers. The increasing trend line of higher incidence rates continued and for several decades went unabated. That was until the introduction of a safe an effective vaccine that prevented the main versions of the virus particularly hpv16 from ever getting a foothold in vaccinated children. That was 2006. Several years later the vaccine was improved to cover even more oncogenic versions of the virus. Studies today particularly in cervical, show its effectiveness as the incidence rate of cervical cancers has declined. That has not been seen in head and neck cancers yet, though they will ultimately decline as well, because if the many decades long latency period of oropharynx cancers. The vaccines impact is systemic and protects all areas . Essentially if you cannot get the infection, you cannot get any of the HPV cancers.

So your second question. Remember that most people who get the infection have an immune system that will clear it. No matter how many times they are infected. Most do not even know they have been infected, as there are no outward symptoms, so you will get it, clear it, and never know that you had the infection. Women who get tested for HPV during cervical exams can test positive on and off during their lives depending on the timing of infection and testing. That does not mean that they will get cancer. The ones that test positive and continue to weeks and months later, have persistent infections and are the ones at risk.

There is no good HPV testing mechanism for men. For us that is a problem as it can exist for decades in us asymptomatically until the cancer develops if we do not clear it naturally.

Getting vaccinated after a number of sexual partners that may have infected you unknowingly has decreasing value as you age and have more partners. For sure the versions that you have not been infected with, and also are lesser threats, you will be protected from. This is why it is so important to vaccinate our kids before their sexual debut. Parents don’t like to hear this, but that is usually before the age of 13 when experimentation related to sex occurs, so between 10 and 12 years old is the recommended age. There doesn’t appear, now with many years of data, that the vaccine wanes in effectiveness so there are no boosters required.

One more point - there are no visible HPV lesions, only visible early cancers. So testing is your only course of discovery. If you have ever tested positive for the most dangerous one version 16, and you have had since that positive test no development of pre cancers changes to your cervix it would be safe to assume that you have a robust immune system that has protected you, and has left immune B cells behind to rapidly detect any new infection so that it will be dealt with.

I’ve lectured on this at universities and medical dental professional society meetings for many years. Most of those presentations were four hours long. There a lot of little details about all this that are interesting. Doctors, not average people, need to know all that. If between what I am posting today and the website pages that are vetted information did not cover what you want to know please ask more and I and others will try to get you the right information.