Cervical cancer and genital warts

[ckforensic]

Originally Posted by superdds

corixa or glaxo smith kline?

Nope

[BreaKaoss]

Originally Posted by ckforensic

No bragging, I was just stoked that I was getting away for a week to Vancouver and thought I'd mention that you may hear something about HPV this week. Also, it is very likely that each one of you who are not virgins has been exposed to HPV at some time in your lives. The body can sometimes fight it off naturally, but sometimes it can't. You likely wouldn't even know that you had it unless you saw genital warts. Men carry many HPV types (cancer causing types, not genital wart types) and give them to women...that's how women get cervical cancer.
The conference is about sharing medical and scientific information that will be directly responsible for saving up to 500,000 lives per year around the world (not just talking about people with STDs). It's pretty cool to think that the work that I'm doing will contribute to saving these people's lives.

is that something men naturally carry or get from intercourse

[ckforensic]

Originally Posted by BreaKaoss

is that something men naturally carry or get from intercourse

Yup. Men and women spread it to each other through intercourse (skin to skin transmission vs. bodily fluids). Supposedly, ~80% of everyone is exposed to HPV at some time in their lives and ~40-50% of people may have it at any given time. This seems rather high to me, but that is what research shows. Very few of these people will be symptomatic and know that they have contracted the virus (especially men without the wart causing types). Pap smears are used to detect the cancer causing HPV types in women as the disease advances towards cancer, but there are now specific HPV tests that doctors can perform to detect it much earlier.

Here is a link to a site from a jazz/rock chick who got unknowingly got HPV and subsequently developed a very aggressive cervical cancer. The link is only to general HPV info, but her story is very touching and she is an awesome musician from the Boston area. Check out her site:
http://www.yellowumbrellatour.com/cervicalcancer.html

[BreaKaoss]

lol, so if 80% is exposed at some point in their life, then that pretty much means 20% don't get anything besides rosie and her 5 sisters. must be a horrible life.

back on topic, thats kinda scary. so really there's no prevention except to catch it early. is the vaccine to help prevent it or cure it once you've tested positive?

[uhohNumber2brb]

I give blood to the red cross every 6 months just to make sure I'm doing ok......just pray to god that you don't ever get a rejection letter...oh yea...saw the commercial yesterday, but didnt pay any attention to it....