January is the cervical cancer awareness month, which focuses on one of the deadliest killers in oncology. According to statistics, it is the fourth most common cancer in women globally, with around 6,60,000 new cases and around 3,50,000 deaths in 2022.

India has around a quarter of the worldwide burden of cervical cancer. Being the second most common cancer in both incidence and cancer mortality among women, cervical cancer accounts for 17 per cent of all cancer deaths among women between the ages of 30 and 69. Studies say that one in every 53 Indian women is at risk of getting cervical cancer during their lifetime.

While Western countries have seen a significant decline in the burden of cervical cancer due to various factors that include increased female literacy rate, improvement in reproductive factors, widespread vaccine coverage, use of contraception and sexual practices, in India, particularly in rural areas, difficulty in healthcare access and social taboos make it nearly impossible for women with symptoms to get diagnosed or treated. “More often than not, after an arduous journey to different hospitals and multiple referrals, the patient is in an advanced stage of cancer and not redeemable by a simple surgery. The gamut of chemotherapy and radiation and all the sequelae that follow can often overwhelm the finances of lower middle-class households,” Dr. Madhavi Nair, Consultant, Surgical Oncology, Manipal Hospital, told Times Now.

The human papillomavirus or HPV, is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. While cervical cancer has been the most common of all HPV-related cancers for years, now 40 per cent of all HPV-induced cancer cases are also found in men.

HPV has long been associated with oral and oropharyngeal malignancies, prevalent in India. The cancer-causing strains of HPV infect both men and women and usually spread among individuals who show no symptoms of infection. While some of these infections result in cancer years later, other infections generate benign growths like warts.

Similar to other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), the infection's epidemiological chain involves men. Sexual contact is the main way that penile HPVs are transmitted. The transmission of HPV is significantly influenced by sexual interactions with women who are prostitutes, and in certain groups, sex workers may serve as a significant source of high-risk HPV.

“Male partners who act as both carriers and vectors of oncogenic HPVs may significantly increase their female partners' chance of acquiring cervical cancer,” said Dr. Nair. “And so, in the absence of screening programs, male partners' sexual behaviour may have a greater influence on her chance of developing cervical cancer than her own,” she added.

Because a percentage of infected men are more likely to acquire anal and penile malignancies, men may also become the "victims" of their own HPV infections, albeit this is less common than it is in women. Male circumcision status has been demonstrated to lower the risk of cervical cancer in their female partners as well as the chance of contracting and spreading genital HPV.

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