By Steven Reinberg MONDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) -- Human
papillomavirus (HPV), a common sexually transmitted virus that
accounts for most cases of cervical cancer, may also play a role
in lung cancer, researchers report. In other smaller studies,
HPV has been found in lung cancer patients. But what role the
virus plays, if any, in the development of the disease is not
known, the scientists from the International Agency for Research
on Cancer (IARC) said. "These preliminary results warrant
further investigations into the role of HPV in lung cancer,"
said lead researcher Devasena Anantharaman, a postdoctoral
fellow in Genetic Epidemiology Group, which is part of IARC.
"However, determining the physical presence of the virus in
these lung tumors along with other established markers of HPV-
related cancer are necessary to establish a causal
relationship," Anantharaman said. The findings were to be
presented Monday at the annual meeting of the American
Association for Cancer Research, held in Orlando, Fla. For