Not if you are satisfied with your due diligence.
RE the picked at random statement, I have observed during my time on this site that we have 3 large groups of patients, 1.
HPV positive, typically non tobacco users and Primary usually found in BOT or tonsils, 2.
HPV negative, tobacco users with Primary usually found in the forward part of the tongue and 3.
HPV negative, non tobacco users with Primary usually found in the forward part of the tongue. I have asked docs at Moffitt numerous times over the years what do they think cause OC in group 3 and the only answer I have ever gotten (not universal) is perhaps another virus or another undiscovered strain of
HPV. Back when I was Dx'ed with OC I was told that the typical OC patient "was an old man who sits in a bar and smokes and drinks all day"! Since I was in otherwise perfect health and didn't use tobacco and only drank socially I pushed Moffitt for a cause to my OC only to be told "what difference does it make, you have the cancer and there's only one way to treated so gets get started". This response really ticked me off especially coming from a teaching cancer center but what else was I to do. I went thru Tx and I also didn't find this site until my Tx was over so it was then that I renewed my quest to find my cause. When I first went on this site there was no mention of
HPV, EVERYONE was a tobacco user. I did happen upon a "study" being done by a Dr from Johns Hopkins, Maura Gillison who thought there might be a connection between OC and the
HPV virus. I
called her (she answered her phone herself) and after we talked she asked me to send my cancer slides to her (Moffitt tried to talk me out if doing this BTW) and a month later she said my slides tested positive for HPV16 meaning my cancer was not tobacco related but caused by a virus. Ever since then I have been on a mission to make sure the world knows that
HPV causes OC.
