On Thursday, May 14, 2026, the Nuclear Medicine Center of HC-FMUSP hosted the event Prevention of HPV-Related Cancers, featuring two lectures by international experts, Professor Stephen Goldstone and Professor Anna Giuliano. The event took place at the Ted Eston Auditorium and was organized by Professor Luisa Villa and Professor Laura Sichero, both from the São Paulo State Cancer Institute (Icesp).
Fighting the Rise in Anal Cancer
Prof. Stephen Goldstone, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, USA), opened the event with the lecture Fighting the Rise in Anal Cancer. He presented data on the prevalence of HPV in the anal canal in both men and women.
Among men, Prof. Goldstone highlighted the differences between heterosexual men and men who have sex with men (MSM). Among women, the key point was the correlation between cervical and vulvar cancers caused by HPV and anal cancer caused by the same virus, demonstrating the possibility of infections at more than one anatomical site. He also addressed the occurrence of self-contamination — a situation in which a patient already carrying the virus at one anatomical site ends up transmitting the infection to another site through direct hand contact or during intimate hygiene practices.
Prof. Goldstone also presented demographic data on the progression of lesions to cancer and emphasized the importance of early surgical intervention to halt disease progression, as well as the impact of diagnosis and treatment on patient survival. He further underscored vaccination as a preventive measure against HPV infection in the anal canal in both men and women.
Prevention of HPV-Driven Oropharyngeal Cancer
The second lecture, Prevention of HPV-Driven Oropharyngeal Cancer, was delivered by Prof. Anna Giuliano, from the Moffitt Cancer Center (Tampa, USA). She opened her presentation by drawing attention to the fact that oropharyngeal cancer is on the rise in both high-income countries and middle-income countries, such as Brazil.
Prof. Giuliano discussed the natural history of oral HPV, with emphasis on the different immune responses in men and women. She explained that, although men are generally able to clear the virus more easily, they rarely develop antibodies against HPV through natural infection. With aging, the ability to clear the viral infection tends to decline, favoring viral persistence and increasing the risk of progression to cancer — which accounts for the growing number of HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer cases in older men.
She also addressed other aspects of HPV transmission and progression in the oral cavity, noting that, when considering oropharyngeal infection specifically, transmission from women to men during oral sex tends to be more frequent than transmission in the reverse direction. She also emphasized that HPV is a contact-transmitted virus, meaning that any type of direct physical contact with the virus is potentially dangerous for infection. She further discussed the relationship between smoking and HPV-driven lesion progression in the oropharynx.
Finally, Prof. Giuliano highlighted vaccination as the primary available strategy for preventing this cancer, stressing that it is the only means by which men develop antibodies against the virus.
