Allergy symptoms that persist may mean a bigger problem
With allergy season upon us, many people may be suffering from a scratchy or sore throat, hoarseness and loss of voice.
Apr 14, 2015
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With allergy season upon us, many people may be suffering from a scratchy or sore throat, hoarseness and loss of voice.
Apr 14, 2015
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Bacteria and viruses have an obvious role in causing infectious diseases, but microbes have also been identified as the surprising cause of other illnesses, including cervical cancer (Human papilloma virus) and stomach ulcers ...
Jun 1, 2015
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For people infected with the human papilloma virus (HPV), the likelihood of clearing the infection and avoiding HPV-related cancer may depend less on the body's disease-fighting arsenal than has been generally assumed.
Mar 24, 2015
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New drugs in the early stages of development by pharmaceutical companies could have an extra benefit – the ability to cancel out HPV virus, which can cause cervical cancer and skin conditions.
Apr 30, 2018
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A major international trial published in The Lancet Oncology has looked at studies from 13 head and neck cancer centers from nine countries around the world. Using the data of 7,895 patients, a research team has found that ...
Feb 13, 2023
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Cervical cancer negative for the human papilloma virus (HPV) is rare but more aggressive. It is more frequently diagnosed at advanced stages, with more metastasis and reduced survival. These are the conclusions of a study ...
Apr 18, 2019
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Even as cancer treatment improves and survival rates go up, so too does the number of people afflicted with the deadly disease, experts said ahead of World Cancer Day.
Feb 2, 2018
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Viruses are naturally occurring entities. Viruses have existed on Earth long before humans and vastly outnumber humans. There are more viruses on Earth than there are stars in the universe or cells in the human body.
May 13, 2020
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A large, international clinical trial led by doctors at the University of California, San Francisco indicates that a vaccine to prevent anal cancer is safe and effective, according to a study reported in the Oct. 27, 2011 ...
Oct 26, 2011
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A tumor-specific vaccine combined with an immune checkpoint inhibitor shrank tumors in one third of patients with incurable cancer related to the human papilloma virus (HPV) in a phase II clinical trial led by investigators ...
Sep 27, 2018
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Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a virus from the papillomavirus family that is capable of infecting humans. Like all papillomaviruses, HPVs establish productive infections only in keratinocytes of the skin or mucous membranes. While the majority of the 77 known types of HPV (according to eMedicine) cause no symptoms in most people, some types can cause warts (verrucae), while others can – in a minority of cases – lead to cancers of the cervix, vulva, vagina, and anus (in women) or cancers of the anus and penis (in men). It can also cause cancers of the head and neck (tongue, tonsils and throat). Recently, HPV has been linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
More than 30 to 40 types of HPV are typically transmitted through sexual contact and infect the anogenital region. Some sexually transmitted HPV types may cause genital warts. Persistent infection with "high-risk" HPV types — different from the ones that cause skin warts — may progress to precancerous lesions and invasive cancer. HPV infection is a cause of nearly all cases of cervical cancer. However, most infections with these types do not cause disease.
Most HPV infections in young females are temporary and have little long-term significance. Seventy percent of infections are gone in 1 year and ninety percent in 2 years. However, when the infection persists — in 5% to 10% of infected women — there is high risk of developing precancerous lesions of the cervix, which can progress to invasive cervical cancer. This process usually takes 10–15 years, providing many opportunities for detection and treatment of the pre-cancerous lesion. Progression to invasive cancer can be almost always prevented when standard prevention strategies are applied, but the lesions still cause considerable burden necessitating preventive surgeries, which do in many cases involve loss of fertility.
In more developed countries, cervical screening using a Papanicolaou (Pap) test or liquid-based cytology is used to detect abnormal cells that may develop into cancer. If abnormal cells are found, women are invited to have a colposcopy. During a colposcopic inspection, biopsies can be taken and abnormal areas can be removed with a simple procedure, typically with a cauterizing loop or, more commonly in the developing world — by freezing (cryotherapy). Treating abnormal cells in this way can prevent them from developing into cervical cancer.
Pap smears have reduced the incidence and fatalities of cervical cancer in the developed world, but even so there were 11,000 cases and 3,900 deaths in the U.S. in 2008. Cervical cancer has substantial mortality in resource-poor areas; worldwide, there are an estimated 490,000 cases and 270,000 deaths each year.
HPV vaccines (Cervarix and Gardasil), which prevent infection with the HPV types (16 and 18) that cause 70% of cervical cancer, may lead to further decreases.
This text uses material from Wikipedia licensed under CC BY-SA