Science of Sex #2: "Oral sex and risk of oral cancer"
Oral sex is good but oral cancer is not... what is the link between these 2 things ? Follow @sex-info if you like Sex and Sciences !
Hi boys and girls !
There is a controversy concerning the link between oral cancer and oral sex. Indeed, some STDs transmitted by bucco-genital intercourse could be risk factors for oral cancer (the papillomavirus, frequently found in regards of sexual organs, is associated with the adenocarcinoma of the oral cavity).
This meta-analysis* published in August 2015 by a team of Chinese physician’s in the Journal of evidence-based medicine has studied this issue.
The researcher’s conclusions are reassuring: “The results based on random-effects model indicated that there was no significant association between oral sex and risk of oral cancer (OR 1.15, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.54; P = 0.33). Sensitivity analysis showed that the result was robust and subgroups analyses also revealed similar results..”
So are we safe after oral sex ?
As usual, this study has biases: it integrates only previous observational works (it is difficult to design a prospective randomized study with a group “oral sex” and a group “no oral sex”). Moreover, the number of sexual partners probably counts for the risk of cancer: more different partners = more risk of exposure to STDs = more risk of having an oral papillomavirus if bucco-genital intercourse ...maybe = risk factor of oral cancer ? Finally, researchers are cautious in their final conclusion: “However, the practitioners should assure they are without sexually transmitted diseases and with good oral health, and at least cleaned carefully and thoroughly before oral sex.”
The link to the scientific abstract of the present article (which I encourage you to read if the topic interests you): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26107371
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- a meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies