Hey all,
I'm relatively new here so I was wondering -- do doctors H. Hunter Handsfield and Edward Hook still answer these threads? I noticed that the STD forums was dissolved so I wasn't sure.
Anyways, I'm curious as to what the risk of oral cancer is from those *already* infected with HPV16. Most articles simply state that the risk of oral cancer from oral HPV is low, but most strains (which also happen to be the most common ones) do NOT cause oral cancer in the first place. So I feel like this aggregation is relatively uninformative.
According to a recent study by D'Souza from Johns Hopkins, around ~2% of the population carry oral HPV16. So I'm curious: is the lifetime risk of oral cancer from oral HPV among the general population only so low ( < 1% ) because the odds of contracting an oncogenic HPV strain (i.e. 16) low? Or is it also because the risk is low, even among those who are carrying HPV16?