Jerry and others,

Only someone like Brian who deals with this stuff at the highest level day in and day out might be able to fully address this question but like Margaret said when I was Dx'ed 3 years ago Moffitt told me I was a youngster to have OC. The vast majority were tobacco users and apparently older than me. When I forced my issue with Moffitt and found out I was HPV+ it opened up a whole new world for me to explore. Shortly after this results of some studies confirmed that there were more OC people like me and my birth year, 1948, was mentioned as some benchmark meaning if you were born before 1948 and you had SCC you were more likely to have it because of tobacco and if you were born in 1948 or later you were more likely to be HPV+.

So this site seemed to mirror that as we began to see more people test positive (or at least have the traits) for HPV and less from tobacco. It was like you either were a tobacco user or you tested positive for HPV. We did see a few youngsters come here with OC but they were chewers. Then about a year ago, maybe more, I started to see a new group come here. They were in their 30's/40's, non smokers, Primaries NOT in the area where HPV seemed to start and they tested negative for HPV. I shook my head as if someone must have screwed the HPV test up. But more and more came with exactly the same traits. I have had more than one conversation with my docs at Moffitt and they all say they are seeing the same thing but the closest I got to an explanation was "maybe it's a new strain of HPV". I haven't read anything that has discussed this either.

Again, maybe Brian can put me on the right path. There has to be either some common link that at least I can't see or there is a new and distinct cause for SCC in the OC and I hope researchers pin point it because this is not a cancer treatment that is friendly to people living 50 years with the side effects.