A new research found a link between smoking and the risk of developing oral human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16).
The research team led by Carole Fakhry, M.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, examined data of 6,887 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They studied the links between objective biomarkers reflective of all current tobacco exposures (environmental, smoking, and use of smokeless tobacco) and oral HPV-16 prevalence.
Participants aged between 14 and 69 years were required to undergo oral HPV DNA testing and were also asked to fill out questionnaires about their tobacco use and sexual behaviors. Tobacco use was defined as using a nicotine-containing product for the past five days.
The research team found that participants who reported tobacco use had considerably higher levels of biomarkers of tobacco exposure. This finding is a cause of concern as oral HPV-16 increases the risk of developing oropharyngeal squamous cell cancers.
In addition, HPV rates increased with the number of cigarettes a person smoked.
The tobacco biomarkers included serum cotinine, a major nicotine metabolite, and urinary 4- (methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol (NNAL), a tobaccospecific, carcinogenic metabolite.
The study also found people who used tobacco were more likely to be male, younger, less educated and have had a higher number of lifetime oral sexual partners. "These findings highlight the need to evaluate the role of tobacco in the natural history of oral HPV-16 infection and progression to malignancy," researchers wrote in the study.
The findings were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
