Mysterious Cancers of 'Unknown' Origin in Men Traced Back to HPV

Some cancers are mysterious, in that doctors cannot determine where they originate and how they will spread. About 4 percent of head and neck cancers are of the UPSCC variety. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore have found that the human papillomavirus (HPV) is strongly associated with UPSCCs in the head and neck area and, more specifically, cancer of the oropharynx, the middle part of the throat that includes the tonsils and the base of the tongue.