Throat Lesion

I'm so sorry to hear that you are now faced with the possibility of another cancer.  I hope it turns out to be nothing of concern, but glad you are having it checked out thoroughly.  You are right about mouth and throat cancers being caused by HPV in a lot of cases.  Thanks for the reminder!  Please let us know what you find out.  I send good wishes for you.

Martha

Mollymaude said:

HPV

Another reason to make sure your young relatives and friends under the age of 26 are vaccinated for HPV! The real tragedy will be the young people that get cervical, mouth and throat, and anal cancer from HPV now that so much of it is preventable with the vaccine. 

I am hoping yours is a false alarm, jcorum. I just had a consult at KU med center in Kansas City with Dr Ault who helped to develop the vaccine. He said after we get treatment it is possible the HPV is destroyed along with the cancer, he says sometimes it's only the cancer cells that have the HPV. So it's possible we are HPV free completely!

Question: when you guys get anoscopes do you get tested for anal HPV? Have any of you gone from HPV negative on your Pap test to positive without being exposed? 

Did Dr. Ault recommend anal pap smears for anal cancer patients like us?  I don't think an anoscopy would do an HPV test, although I think it wuld be a fairly simple procedure.

It would be wonderful if the treatment destroyed all the hpv in our system...we wouldn't have to worry about cervical or head and neck cancer!

Do you get both a pap and an HPV test?

I've only had one anoscopy so far and did not get HPV test with it- will do next one this November. I plan to ask them to check for HPV then. I didn't think to ask Dr Ault about whether it should be done or not. Current plan is for my surgeon to do anoscopy and Dr Ault to dig out my scarred in IUD while I'm under general anesthesia in November. The hard part will be finding a time they can both be in OR.

I think CDC has not made official recommendations yet for people who have had the older vaccine. Some of this stuff is so new they don't have answers, only guesses. Common sense tells you though that getting protected against 5 more strains is better, especially since  extra coverage protects against cause of about 20-25 % cervical cancers. 

Glad to hear you got your daughter vaccinated all those years ago! Please let us know how the appt for your tonsil lesion comes out.

Glad to hear your good news and I hope the throat feeling goes away.

I just saw this today.  Interesting subject.  I had anal cancer in 2005 and throat/neck cancer in 2011.  I had a lump on my neck and finally had it checked out.  I feel stupid! By that time it was stage 4 cancer.  Well, you're not supposed to have cancer twice (I thought)!   Yeah, the treatment is brutal.  Sooo, that is a very good idea to keep an eye on your throat and neck.  I wish somebody had said that to me. Ha!  Anyway, I had radiation and chemo on both cancers with no operations.   I did have to have a feeding tube briefly.  That being said, for all on this feed, please see an ENT if you suspect anything.  Jcorum, I hope your throat is feeling better and there are no worries! 

Good question!  Maybe my doctor knew where it came from, but he didn't tell me.  I remember I asked him how I got it and he said it could be from a virus.   At that time I was just trying to fight the fight.  I think I'll ask my ENT next time I see him.  Of course it's now just once a year.  Yay! 

Great that they have a vaccine now!

Mollymaude said:

Pathology testing

They can check for HPV on the biopsy material. I believe it has to be a special request which seems silly, they should automatically be checking for HPV on all cervical, anal, and head and neck cancers. If the head and neck cancer is caused by HPV it has a better prognosis than those that aren't. 

I doubt that HPV testing on head and neck cancers was  routinely done until fairly recently; it used to be thought that, in some cases,it might have been a result of smoking and drinking.  I remember being surprised when Michael Douglas announced that his cancer (throat or base of tongue) was caused by a sexually transmitted virus (HPV).

Although pelvic radiation is terrible, head and neck radiation and surgery is the absolute worst!  It affects, eating,swallowing, speaking and maybe breathing.  If the surgery included a neck dissection (nodes) also disfiguring!  Our miseries are felt but are not visable. 

Someone had severe cervical dyplasia from 30 years which the person didn’t really know about HPV then but knew know it had to be triggered by that, then the anal cancer. You can take help from doctoral dissertation service. It has been said that throat cancer is also began by HPV and alternative area we want to keep a good watch on. Dentists should be closely checking our mouths at the time of checkups.