Study: HIV-positive Practicing Homosexual Men 9000% More Likely to Develop Anal Cancer

“Alex, what is: Things I could have gone my entire life NOT knowing for $500?”

I would also point out that if the study’s conclusions and the doctor’s quote is correct, there is no reason to believe that the repercussions wouldn’t be the same for heterosexual couples having anal sex, especially if one party is immune-supressed.

"there is no reason to believe that the repercussions wouldn’t be the same for heterosexual couples having anal sex"

Correct, and just to put this risk into perspective using a worst case scenario guesstimate.

1 -Population of the U.S. 300 million
2 -Percent that is the receptive party in in anal sex: 5% (feel free to disagree with my guesstimate)
3 - Percent of the population that would be subject to the increased risk of anal cancer 15 million
4 - Number of cases of anal cancer annually 4,500

If 100% of anal cancer is found in the high risk group, then their annual risk for anal cancer is .03% or .9% over a 30 year sexual life. As my numbers I believe are very conservative, I would say that I've probably overestimated the risk by an order of magnitude.

I went to your link — not convincing. Look at the definition of anal cancer, you can see why, as defined, it reduces the %. What’s the name for the next part of the anatomy? Colon. And there’s plenty of colon cancer. And Gays have an increased risk for that as well.

Superficially, at least, it does seem a bit misleading. Articles such as this could actually be bad for the pro-Christian view, because it makes the entire stance seem not entirely trustworthy.

Homosexuality and abortion are DEFINITELY BAD, the latter being murder.
But this isn't the way to combat it--i.e. by producing misleading scientific information. The two are bad because God declared them to be bad--and, again, the latter is murder. Suggesting that if you have an abortion you will get breast cancer is misleading and unbecoming. It would be as though stating that if you eat barbecued, grilled food you ARE going to get cancer.

"I went to your link — not convincing. Look at the definition of anal cancer, you can see why, as defined, it reduces the %. What’s the name for the next part of the anatomy? Colon. And there’s plenty of colon cancer. And Gays have an increased risk for that as well."

What are you talking about? The link didn't say anything about reducing risk in either anal or colon cancers and in case you missed it, the whole dang article is about anal cancer not colon cancer. Anal and colon cancer are not the same thing, they just aren't.

"But this isn't the way to combat it--i.e. by producing misleading scientific information."

I agree. It is an attempt to influence those who are not persuaded by the moral argument, by exaggerating or flat out making up a fear based argument.

Like you said, it is the wrong approach. Once people realize you (literary "you" not you personally) are full of B.S., any valid arguments you might have had will be dismissed.

There is an increased risk -- it's not a statistical non-entity, either. I'm talking about colo-rectal cancer. The rectum is the 'site' of the activity, not just the anus (which is only the first inch or so of the anatomy we're discussing). Just looking at a few google hits i found this article, for example.

New Treatments for Anal Cancer
Helen D. Jones, MD

Tumors of the anus and rectum are uncommon because these are tumors really of the anal canal. I am going to talk about the squamous, the basaloid, cloacogenic tumors of the anus.

If you look at the epidemiology of anal cancer you'll see that it represents a relatively small percentage of the large bowel cancers. Of course, the anus is only about an inch, inch-and-a-quarter, long. If you look, there has been a difference in the occurrence of this tumor. For most of this century it was more common in people above the age of 55, it was about twice as common in women as men, was associated with people that had previous anal-rectal pathology; hemorrhoids, fissures, perhaps anal warts. And in the recent past it has increased significantly in men below the age of 45 and tends now to be more common in men. So there is really a bimodal peak. You still see the older patients but you do see younger patients. Why this occurred is of considerable interest and is telling us something about viral carcinogenesis, actually.

Just to try and sort out the pathology, we have the uncommon tumors which we are not really going to talk about, and then we have the anal cancers. They essentially are squamous cell cancers, or derived from squamous cell cancers. The anal skin cancers are keratinizing just like any kind of a skin cancer, a squamous carcinoma of the skin. Then you have the non-keratinizing anal cancers of the anal canal. These are really non-keratinizing squamous cancers, sometimes called basilo-squamous. And there is this transition zone from adenomatous to squamous. Sometimes they are called basaloid, sometimes the more poorly differentiated are cloacogenic. But they all derive from the epithelium of the anal canal, which essentially is a non-keratinizing squamous epithelium.

It appears that there is a strong association with human papilloma virus in anal cancers. There are several factors that are important here; genital warts are strongly associated with the risk of anal cancer and if you look at anal cancers, a large percentage of them are positive for the human papilloma virus genome. The types of human papilloma viruses that cause anal cancer are similar to the types that are associated with cervical cancer. Just like there is a high grade, a carcinoma, a CIN in the cervix or cervical intraepithelial neoplasm, a premalignant condition associated with type 16. There are other types associated with lower grade AIN's and with condylomas. But human papilloma virus continues to be an important factor.

If you look at the etiology and how people might get anal cancer, certainly in males there is a very strong correlation with anal receptive intercourse. There doesn't appear to be the correlation in females. This is from Cancer Medicine, Brenda Shank in 1994. There also is a strong correlation with HPV virus. Presumably the HPV virus is transmitted in male homosexual populations as a sexually transmitted disease. If you look at other associations, just like cervical cancer, there is a mild association with herpes virus type II. Immunosuppression is actually important. If you work in an institution where there is a lot of solid organ transplant - for example, liver and heart transplant - where patients are on cyclosporine for long periods of time - years - you'll see an increased risk of anal cancer. And these are in patients who previously had HPV infection, and as I'll show you, immunosuppression appears to facilitate or decrease the period of time for viral carcinogenesis in people with previous HPV infection. It's interesting that what cyclosporine as an immunosuppressive does is that it doesn't change CD-4 numbers but what it does is it freezes CD-4 cells so that they cannot divide, they cannot function. So in effect you are getting a very similar defect to what you get with HIV which of course decreases CD-4 numbers. Smoking has some increased relative risk. And HIV alone is not necessarily associated with anal cancer. It's HIV in patients who have had a previous papilloma virus infection.

These are very interesting, very recent, data suggesting or giving you an insight in to what may be happening with concomitant HIV infection, or for that matter immunosuppression, and the presence of patients who have a history of anal cancers. This was presented at the Digestive Diseases Week a couple of months ago in Florida from a group in Paris. Essentially what they did is they took patients who were HIV positive and HIV negative, all of them had anal condylomata. Because genital warts are not terribly uncommon and people can get them without being immunosuppressed. They treated the genital warts as you would, resected them, froze them or did whatever was necessary to make them go away. Then they looked at recurrence and they found that within a year about 75% of the HIV positive patients recurred versus only 8% of the HIV negative patients. There was a ten-fold increase in dysplasia. So again suggesting that what happens here is that when you have HIV infection, what you are doing - because of the immune dis-modulation of HIV infection - you are accelerating the rate with which viral neoplasia, in this case benign viral neoplasias or perhaps pre-malignant viral neoplasia, can occur.

Here’s another article, showing the prevalence of anal-cancer precursers in non-HIV “MSMs” (men who have sex with men”).

(By the way, if 1/2 of MSMs are givers and half are receivers, then the effects should be magnified twofold as the receivers.)

Age-Related Prevalence of Anal Cancer Precursors in Homosexual Men: The EXPLORE Study

Background: Infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) is causally linked to the development of anal and cervical cancer. In the United States, the incidence of anal cancer among men who have sex with men (MSM) is higher than the incidence of cervical cancer among women. Anal squamous intraepithelial lesions (ASILs) are anal cancer precursors comprising low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSILs) and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSILs). The prevalence of cervical cancer precursor lesions peaks at around 30 years of age. The age-related prevalence of ASILs in HIV-negative MSM is unknown.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the prevalence and determinants of ASILs in 1262 HIV-negative MSM aged 18–89 years recruited from four U.S. cities. Anal cytology and behavioral data were obtained. Anal HPV infection status was assessed by polymerase chain reaction. Independent predictors of ASILs were identified using logistic regression. All statistical tests were two-sided.

Results: The prevalences of LSILs and HSILs were 15% and 5%, respectively, and did not change with age. In a multivariable analysis, the risk of LSILs was associated with having more than five male receptive anal sex partners (P = .03), any use of poppers (alkyl nitrites) in the previous 6 months [odds ratio (OR) = 1.6, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.1 to 2.5; P = .03] or use of injection drugs two or more times per month during the previous 6 months [OR = 19, 95% CI = 1.3 to 277; P = .03], older age at first receptive anal intercourse (P = .004), and infection with a greater number of HPV types (P<.001 for linear trend). The risk of HSILs was associated with any anal HPV infection (OR = 3.2, 95% CI = 1.1 to 9.4; P = .039) and infection with an increasing number of HPV types (P<.001 for linear trend).

Conclusions: Sexually active HIV-negative MSM in all age groups have a high prevalence of ASILs, possibly reflecting their ongoing sexual exposure to HPV.

Best wishes to your wife. I’ve had brain surgery twice, but did not have cancer either time.

Suggesting that if you have an abortion you will get breast cancer is misleading and unbecoming. >>

nobody is saying that, what we are saying is that there is a “link” and a “correlation” (based on research) to breast cancer if one has an abortion. nobody ever said that abortion is the only cause of breast cancer, genetics and environmental causes play a role. What’s “funny” is that all the pro-aborts out there will stand on the rooftops proclaiming that pesticides and herbicides cause breast cancer and nobody ever refutes them and when someone states the abortion and breast cancer link, every pro-abort comes out of the closet to refute it.

The mothers sould be told about the ABC link information. The drive-by media, planned parenthood, NARAL, komen foundation, democrats, some pro-abortion freepers (not all freepers are republicans and not all are pro-life), pro-abortion republicans, the education profession, the nursing profession, etc. fail to admit the ABC link and not tell their patients, readership, students, etc.

I’m a pro-life FReeper who has read the studies on this supposed link, and I think they are by and large weak studies driven by agenda. And I don’t think that helps the pro-life cause.

Seems like this one ought to go in the “no brainer” category.

That is correctal.

Thanks for the vote of approval :) .