Association of Unsafe Sexual Behavior with Head and Neck Cancer: A Bibliometric Analysis

Inappropriate sexual practice like oral sex has been linked with head and neck cancer (HNC). The recent data revealed that about 20% oropharyngeal caner among Indians are associated with oral sex. Thus, we aimed to comprehensively assess the trend of research in oral sex associated with HNC and to predict the research frontiers and potential hotspots in the near future. The publications related to oral sex and HNC were retrieved from Scopus database via systematic search strategy (till 15th July 2023). VOSviewer version 1.6.19 and Biblioshiny software were used to identify the trends and research hotspots. A total of 2,179 original articles has been identified of which United States had the highest number of articles (837) followed by United Kingdom (155) and India (140). The number of articles in the area of oral sex and HNC has been increased significantly over decades (highest in 2022: 169 articles) which suggests the trend of the research. Most of the studies were from the National Cancer Institute and most of the studies were published in oral oncology journal (76) along with the 3231 citations. HNC, Human papilloma virus (HPV), oropharyngeal cancer and oral cancer are the enriched keywords which suggests that the individual practicing oral sex are prone to HPV infection which results into HNC. HPV infection mediated via oral sex might be the reason behind the surge of HNC which needs to be addressed via spreading awareness, proper counseling and integrating sex education in study curriculum.