According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the human papilloma virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. There are 14 million new cases each year with 200 different strains of HPV. Most strains of HPV are harmless as they are cleared out of the body by the immune system without causing any severe health problems. Out of the 200, only 15 are known to cause cancers. HPV is now linked to cancers classified as oral cancer and oropharyngeal cancer.
According to the American Dental Association (ADA) Mouth Healthy website, HPV is now associated with 9,000 cases of head and neck cancers each year in the United States. About 1.4 million men and 500,000 women have oral HPV.