Children's Vaccines Health Center

Can HPV Vaccine Stop Throat Cancer?

Throat Cancer Tipping Scales Toward HPV Vaccination of Boys continued...

But there are disturbing trends. Husbands of women with cervical cancer have a threefold higher risk of tonsil cancer. And people who have anal cancer have a fourfold to sixfold higher risk of tonsil cancer.

These findings are tipping the ACIP in favor of recommending routine HPV vaccination for boys.

"Most members of the [ACIP] HPV working group favor the strategy of routine vaccination of all males at the age at which they get the most benefit," Eileen Dunne, MD, MPH, a CDC researcher assisting the working group, said in a presentation to the full ACIP.

But the ACIP did not vote on the issue at the June meeting. Some members of the panel expressed frustration with the process.

"HPV cancers in males account for 7,000 cases a year," said ACIP member Mark H. Sawyer, MD, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. "That is not a trivial number, and we are sitting around here wondering whether to immunize them. But it is not a trivial question."

The National Cancer Institute estimated that in 2010, there were 12,660 cases of OP cancer -- and 2,410 deaths. About half of those cases would have been male; at least three-fourths would have been caused by HPV.

The full ACIP likely will vote on the issue at its October meeting.