ANTIBODIES to the human papilloma virus type 16 (HPV16) develop in the body up to 40 years before a clinical diagnosis of throat cancer, researchers have found.
They say the presence of the antibodies indicates a strong increased risk of the disease.
The study, which is published in the leading cancer journal Annals of Oncology, also found that having HPV16 antibodies increased the risk of throat cancer far more in white people than in black: nearly 100-fold in white people, but 17-fold in black people.
Patients with HPV-associated throat cancer tend to respond better to treatment than those whose cancer is not associated with the infection.
The researchers say this may partly explain the worse survival rates among black patients.
The main causes of throat cancer (or oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma/OPSCC) are smoking, alcohol use and infection with HPV16. In the US, the proportion of OPSCCs attributable to HPV16 is around 70 per cent; in some European countries a similar proportion is caused by HPV16, although this varies from country to country.
The proportion of throat cancers caused by HPV16 has been increasing over the past few decades, said Mattias Johansson, a cancer epidemiologist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, who led the research.
This was particularly the case among men, and in some countries the overwhelming majority are now caused by the virus, Dr Johansson said.
He said the study found that antibodies can, in some cases, develop several decades prior to diagnosis of cancer.
"If rates of throat cancer continue to rise in the future, this biomarker could provide one means to identify individuals at very high risk of the disease who may benefit from specific preventive measures," he said.
