Stupid Headline Award (Oral Sex Category)

The "award" for worst headline of the week goes to The Register in the U.K. for its recent article titled "Oral sex could be more dangerous than cigars." This craven attempt to titillate readers deliberately mis-characterized the results of a recent study about oral cancer in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Making matters worse, Lewis Page, the author of the Register piece, goes on to say that "The study appeared to suggest that throat-cancer risks from booze and cigs were insignificant compared to those from getting too frisky."

Did you even bother to read the study, Lewis? The NEJM study authors were trying to show that a virus--one of many strains of human papilloma virus or HPV to be exact--may play a role in triggering cancers of the mouth and tongue.

Table 4 clearly shows that study participants who were NOT infected with HPV but who smoked more than a pack a day for 20 years or four packs a day for five years (both amounts are considered equivalent to 20 pack-years) increased their risk of oral cancer nearly THREE-fold.

And those who were not infected with HPV but who had more than 20 pack-years under their belt AND who drank at least 15 alcoholic drinks per week increased their risk nearly NINE-fold.

The reason the NEJM researchers included a question about oral sex in their study was to give an indication of one mechanism by which HPV might be spread from one person to another. They also looked at number of vaginal sex partners--which increased the risk as well. But the focus is still on the virus, not the means of transmission. (By the way, regular condom users showed no increased risk of oral cancer.)

The NEJM researchers also found that study participants who did not brush their teeth every day increased their risk of oral cancer by five times. No HPV connection there. But "Brushing Your Teeth May Prevent Oral Cancer" isn't the sexiest headline in the world--is it?

It's important to note that the NEJM study was not definitive. It was a preliminary study that looked at only 100 people with oral cancer and compared them to 200 people who didn't have oral cancer to see what the differences might be.

Bottom line: the intriguing suggestion that HPV may (or may not) help trigger oral cancer still needs to be proven. Unfortunately, headlines like the one found in the Register serve only the puerile interests of their writers and do not help the general consumer at all.

Source: G. D'Souza, et al. "Case–Control Study of Human Papillomavirus and Oropharyngeal Cancer." New England Journal of Medicine; Volume 356:1944-1956 (May 10, 2007), available in full for free.