Dickinson made the revelation during a Sirius-XM interview where he said, (via Ultimate Classic Rock, "It's a virus - HPV, human papilloma virus. They all are. I'm almost willing to bet, anytime you hear about somebody who gets tonsil cancer, throat cancer, lung cancer, whatever it is, if they're not heavy smokers and they're not massive, heavy drinkers, it's almost inevitably [HPV]."

He continued, "There's a five hundred percent increase in this type of cancer in men over 40 - five hundred percent increase. It's massive. It's the same virus that causes cervical cancer. The diagnosis is the same. It's the same words they use.