A simple saliva test developed by QUT biomedical scientists has detected early throat cancer in a person who had no symptom and no clinical signs of cancer.
In what is believed to be a world-first, the non-invasive test picked up HPV-DNA in a saliva sample from an infected healthy person. Persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is now the leading cause of cancers in the oropharynx (tonsils and tongue base area of the throat).