A report found that 11 million men and 3.2 million women in the United States are infected with some type of oral HPV and oncologists say it's leading to more head and neck cancer in men.
"From the 1970's to today, the prevalence of this HPV-related head and neck cancer has increased by three to five percent per year from then until now, and it is continuing that same rate," said Oncologist Jerry Barker, Jr., M.D. at Texas Oncology.
"This is a silent epidemic. Most patients who are exposed to this virus, they don't know it. They'll never have symptoms from it, but some of those patients will move on to develop a cancer," said Dr. Barker.