Tongue cancer on the rise in young people but experts baffled at the cause

There has been an alarming increase of a certain type of cancer in young people but experts have no idea what is causing it.

A surprising cancer is on the increase in young people and experts have no idea what is causing it.

Tongue cancer is rising by about four per cent every year for those under 45 with the increase most evident in young women.

Young Australians are developing tongue cancer at faster rates.

Professor Michael McCullough from the University of Melbourne’s medicine, dentistry and health sciences faculty told news.com.au the increase is “concerning”.

“Traditionally the vast majority of people who got lung cancer were older men who were heavy smokers and drinkers,” he said.

“Over the last decade we have seen an increase in people who don’t smoke and drink and who are younger.”

Prof McCullough said tongue cancer is typically picked up late and there is “a lot of morbidity” associated with it.

Smoking and alcohol have traditionally been associated with tongue cancer.

Mr McCullough speculated whether younger patients have a different microbiome in their mouth that means it metabolises alcohol more quickly, increasing their tongue’s exposure to carcinogens.

Michael Clements, the vice president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, said experts were unsure about the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) and whether that was finding residence in the throat and causing tongue cancers.

But he said more research needs to be done.

“We don’t want to be alarming here but we think that this virus could cause it as well as alcohol,” Mr Clements said.

“The trick is if you have a lesion on the tongue or a lump in the throat or on your neck you do need to see your GP.”

The concerns about tongue cancer comes as a young doctor has claimed oral sex is a greater risk factor than smoking in the development of throat cancer among young people.

Dr Daria Sadovskaya made the declaration in a viral TikTok video, the New York Post reports – despite the American Cancer Society (ACS) citing tobacco use as the number-one risk factor for the illness, known as oropharyngeal cancer.

“Are you saying oral sex is proven to be the number one cause of throat cancer?” one user asked Dr Sadovskaya, who responded with a video bluntly stating: “I said what I said.”

The American Cancer Society does cite oral sex as one potential cause of throat cancer, given that HPV, can be transmitted during the act.

It is so prevalent that, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “nearly all sexually active men and women get the virus at some point in their lives”.

While HPV usually goes away on its own within two years, most people don’t realise they have it, meaning they can unwittingly spread the disease.

“Men are more likely to develop throat cancer performing oral sex on women, as women are more likely to carry the [HPV] virus in their genital area,” Dr Sadovskaya said.

Indeed, men were more significantly impacted by HPV-linked oropharyngeal cancer, with diagnosis rates rising 2.8 per cent annually in men from 2015 to 2019, according to the ACS.