By Marilynn Marchione

AP Chief Medical Writer

The HPV vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer in women also might lower the risk in young men of oral infections that can cause mouth and throat cancers, a new study finds.

These cancers are rising fast, especially in men, and research suggests that HPV, the human papillomavirus, is spreading through oral sex. The actor Michael Douglas brought attention to this risk several years ago when he blamed his cancer on it.

This is the first study of whether the vaccine might prevent oral HPV infections in young men, and the results suggest it can. No men who had received at least one dose were later found to have infections of HPV strains linked to cancer, but more than 2 percent of unvaccinated men had them.

“There may be additional benefits to vaccinating your son or daughter” besides the problems the vaccine already is known to prevent, said Dr. Maura Gillison of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Results were released Wednesday by the American Society of Clinical Oncology ahead of presentation at its annual meeting next month.

THE VIRUS

HPV is very common — most sexually active people have been exposed to it. Some types cause genital warts. Usually, the virus causes no symptoms and goes away, but some people develop long-lasting infections of strains that can cause cancer.

The vaccine was approved in 2006 to prevent cervical cancers in women, and later, for some others including anal cancer in men. But acceptance has been slow — only about half of those eligible are getting it now, according to the latest information.

Now, awareness is growing of HPV’s other risks — oral infections are blamed for 70 percent of cancers in the mouth and back of the throat. About 11,600 of these occur each year in the U.S. and rates are rising 5 percent per year. They’re four times more common in men than women.

There are now more mouth and throat cancers caused by HPV in the U.S. each year than there are cervical cancers.

Oral sex is the main risk factor for getting an HPV infection in the mouth or throat, Gillison said. While “oral sex does not give you cancer,” the infection in rare cases can develop into cancer over many years, she explained.

THE STUDY

She led the study, funded by the National Cancer Institute , while previously at Ohio State University. Researchers interviewed 2,627 men and women ages 18 to 33 years in a national health study from 2011 to 2014 about whether they had been vaccinated, and tested oral rinse samples from them for HPV.