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HPV infection is the most common sexually transmitted disease — between 75 percent and 80 percent of females and males in the United States will be infected at some point in their lives. Most will overcome the infection with no ill effects. But in some people, infections lead to cellular changes that cause warts or cancer, including cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancers in women and anal cancers in men and women. A growing body of evidence suggests that HPV also causes throat cancers in men and women as a result of oral sex. HPV infections cause about 15,000 cancers in women and 7,000 cancers in men each year. And while cervical cancer rates have plunged over the past four decades because of widespread screening, anal cancer rates in men and women have been increasing. Head and neck cancers have also been increasing, with the share associated with HPV infection increasing rapidly — perhaps because oral sex has increased in popularity.

But in the first procedure of its kind, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, managed to pinpoint the cause of Joshua’s problem — within 48 hours. He had been infected with an obscure species of bacteria. Once identified, it was eradicated within days.

There are still many obstacles that scientists will have to overcome before these tests can be a part of standard practice.