GMHC supports increased funding for prevention and treatment
ByGMHC supports increased funding for prevention and treatment of anal cancer among gay men.
Anal cancer is generally rare in the U.S. With a total of 4,650 cases per year, the rates of anal cancer in the general public averages two cases per 100,000.57 However, among MSM, the rates are 35/100,000 for HIV-negative MSM, and 80/100,000 for HIV-positive MSM.58
Gay men are 20 times more likely than the general population to get anal cancer,59 and HIV-positive men who have sex with men are up to 40 times more likely than the general population to develop anal cancer.60 Both anal cancer and cervical cancer are caused by strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV). The rates of cervical cancer used to be about 35/100,000 before pap smears, and dropped to 4/100,000 once pap smears became routine. Anal pap smears should also be made widely available to men. The FDA approved Gardasil as a vaccine against HPV in girls and women age 9 through 26. GMHC urges the FDA to trial and, if appropriate, approve Gardasil for use with boys and men to reduce anal cancer rates among gay men.
Malecare, our country’s national Gay Men’s Cancer Survivor nonprofit, has been active in this mission since 1999. For more information, contact: info@malecare.com
57 Alan Nyitray. “Anal Cancer and Human Papilloma viruses in the U.S. in heterosexual men.” Current Oncology. October 2008.
58 Misty Bath and Sonja Rietkerk. “Proactive Anal Pap testing for the HIV positive MSM population in the IDC.” Powerpoint Slide Show presentation. http://www.catie.ca/pdf/CANAC/2007/Rietkerk-ProactiveAnalPaptesting.pdf Accessed: February 18, 2009.
59 Ibid. pg. 4.
60 Cranston, Ross D. et al. “The prevalence, and predictive value, of abnormal anal cytology to diagnose anal dysplasia in a population
