While the common perception about cancer maintains that it is a disease of the aging population, a new study revealed that mouth and throat sores amongst the young generation could be a sign of the development of cancer.

Typically, the risk of acquiring cancer begins and increases as people hit the age of 50 and beyond, but according to a new study, recent trends point out the alarming prevalence of a certain type of cancer in people age 40 and below.

The research said that there is an increase in cases of young people developing cancers found in the mouth and throat in recent years, with the biggest partition of the said increment found in whites while a significant decrease in incidences of blacks diagnosed of oral cancers has been noted.

"Visit your doctor if sores in your mouth don't get better," Director of the Head & Neck Radiation Therapy Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford Hospital and the Lead Investigator in the Research Farzan Siddiqui, MD, PhD said.

"The growing incidence in oropharyngeal cancer has been largely attributed to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which led to an increased transmission of high-risk HPV," Dr. Siddiqui added in a press release.

According to the study, the human papillomavirus or HPV, which is exchanged through sexual intercourse and is common amongst promiscuous people, is strongly linked to the increased prevalence of genital and oral cancers amongst young people.

The research mainly focused on oropharyngeal cancer, a type of cancer which develops in the throat (specifically on the pharynx), at the area at the back of the tongue, on the tonsils, and in the soft palate of the back roof of the mouth.

The study maintained that this year alone, about 41,500 Americans were diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer, adding that it is almost three times more common in men than in women.

"Not only were we surprised to find a substantial increase in young adults with cancer of the tonsils and base of tongue, but also a wide deviation among Caucasians and African Americans with this cancer," Dr. Siddiqui said in a statement.

Based on the data the authors obtained from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, which covered documented oropharyngeal cancer cases from 1973 to 2009, they have concluded that the predominance of the disease in people age 45 and below "suggests either non-sexual modes of HPV transfer at a younger age or a shortened latency period between infection and development of oropharyngeal cancer."

Yahoo News! reported that the findings in the study were presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting.