[Question #1646] HPV Kissing on the Mouth/ Lips vs. Deep Kissing (French)
97 months ago
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
97 months ago
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Welcome to our Forum. I'll try to help by providing some perspective. Given your sexual history there is little doubt that during your early college years you were exposed to HPV through performance of oral sex since most sexually active persons (including you) will have genital HPV. From there forward however, it is important not only to ask whether something occurred but whether or not it is important to your, or your partners' health. The answer to the last question is probably not, for several important reasons. These include:
1. Your current partner may have gotten the HPV vaccine, depending on her age. If so, this vaccine is about 99% effective for preventing genital HPV infections caused by the HPV types it contains (the most common genital strains) and the small amount of data available suggest that it is also effective for prevention of oral infection IF you are currently infected (see below).
2. Even if were infected, most HPV infections are transient and resolve without therapy over a period of six months. Two years after your last oral sex it is unlikely that you would still be infected.
3. As a biological process transmission of HPV to the oral cavity is much less efficient than genital contact. I suspect that it is for this reason that CDC first stated that the infection was not transmitted by kissing and then revised their statement to reflect the fact that oral HPV may, uncommonly be transmitted by deep, open mouth kissing.
4. Finally and most importantly however, it is important to appreciate that only a tiny fraction of all HPV infections go on to cause the thing that makes HPV infection important, cancer. Because health care providers are aware of this they look- most dentist now look for evidence or oral cancer or related disease so in the very, very unlikely situation that you or your partner developed an HPV-related pre-cancerous lesions, it would typically be detected and therefore treatable in the course of recommended health care.
In summary, I suspect that HPV can, rarely be transmitted by deep kissing but that small chance is just not significant enough to recommend that you hinder or curtail your relationships with others because of it. you probably do not have the infection and if you do, it is of little health consequence to your loved ones. A possible analogy has to do with lightening. We are all exposed to it, a few people are struck by it, but none of us should worry about going outside because of fear of it. Media outlets like FOX New and the internet all too often take such information and fail to put it in context. I hope my comments above will help you to do this and to move forward without concern. EWH
97 months ago
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Edward W. Hook M.D.
97 months ago
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Straight to your follow-up questions:
1. The types of HPV virus that cause genital and oral infections are, for the most part the same. Thus the designation of oral vs. genital relates to the location of the infection, nothing more.
2. No these sorts of kisses (kissing on the cheeks, "pecks" on the lips) are no risk events for HPV.
3. The fact that nearly all HPV infections resolve without therapy, most typically over a period of about 6 months, is indisputable. There are no data on whether age has a meaningful impact on ability to eliminate infections. If this were the case, it is people far older than you who might have slower elimination of infection.
EWH