The recent controversy over the Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has caused many women to become hip to the HPV-cervical cancer connection. But this was not always the case. Even a few months ago, when I asked some friends if they knew what HPV was and what it caused, I was greeted with blank stares. Not surprising, considering that most women with HPV don’t know they have it and won’t end up developing cervical cancer.
Funny thing though, most women are intimately acquainted with HPV. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives, and by age fifty, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection. 80 percent! But before you go reaching for the chastity belt and claiming yourself a born again virgin, please read on. HPV is common, but not chastity-worthy. I promise.
Human papillomavirus is the name of a group of about one hundred different types of viruses. Some of them cause the warts on our hands and feet, some of them cause the warts in our private areas, and some of them cause cancer. That’s quite a spectrum, but the important ones are the thirty or so that are transmitted sexually. Who really cares about an unsightly bump on your finger when we’re talking cancer?
Of the thirty types of viruses that are sexually transmitted through genital contact, some are low risk and some are high risk. The low risk ones can cause genital warts—raised, cauliflower-looking things that can appear on the penis, labia, inside the vagina, and on the skin around the genitalia. Both low and high risk genital viruses can cause mild Pap test abnormalities which do not have serious consequences. Approximately ten of the thirty genital HPV types are high risk and can lead, in rare cases, to development of cervical cancer and in even rarer cases, to cancers of the anus and genital areas. That’s the bad news.
