Blood test detects HPV head-neck cancers up to 10 years early

HPV-associated head and neck cancer patients diagnosed late require treatments with significant, life-long side effects; early detection could prevent this burden.

In the long human struggle against cancers that arrive unannounced, researchers at Mass General Brigham have quietly shifted the odds. A blood test called HPV-DeepSeek can now detect the DNA fingerprints of head and neck tumors up to a decade before a patient feels any sign of illness — offering, for the first time, a window of intervention in a disease that has historically been found only after it has already exacted its toll. The discovery matters not only as a scientific achievement but as a reckoning with what early knowledge can spare us: the brutal treatments, the permanent losses, the

Blood test detects HPV head-neck cancers up to 10 years early

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