- NEW YORK (Reuters Health)
- Nearly one in five US women between the ages of 12 and 59 are believed
to be infected with the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus HPV-16,
a virus that increases cervical cancer risk, new study findings show.
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- There are about 100 different types of HPV, which has
been linked to genital warts and the development of cervical cancer. While
some HPV types cause genital warts and others produce no symptoms, only
a handful increase the risk of cervical cancer. HPV-16 is thought to account
for as many as half of all cases of cervical cancer nationwide.
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- In many cases, the body can successfully combat the virus,
which eventually disappears from the cervix. HPV is very common in sexually
active men and women.
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- In the current study, lead author Dr. Katherine M. Stone
of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia and
colleagues evaluated blood samples from 9,629 men and women between the
ages of 12 and 59 for HPV-16. The samples were collected as part of a national
survey conducted in the early 1990s. Their findings are published in the
November issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
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- In all, 13% of the tested samples carried antibodies
to HPV-16, suggesting that people had been exposed to the virus and were
infected with it. While about 18% of women carried the antibodies, 8% of
men did. The researchers also found that about 13% of whites, 19% of African
Americans and 9% of Mexican Americans tested positive for HPV-16 exposure.
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- "These findings document the high levels of HPV-16
infection in the United States, especially in women," the authors
write. The authors note that the prevalence of infection in their study
may actually underestimate how common HPV-16 infection actually is, since
some people infected with the virus do not develop antibodies to it.
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- The gender difference in HPV-16 infection rates was not
surprising, the authors note, "since anatomic and other biological
difference usually portend greater susceptibility to most sexually transmitted
diseases for women than for men."
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- In other findings, women in their 20s were more than
twice as likely to test positive for HPV-16 than women over 50, while men
30 and older were more likely to be infected with the virus than younger
men.
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- "Our findings have important public health implications
for the development of cervical cancer prevention and control strategies,"
the authors conclude.
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- SOURCE - The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2002;186:1396-1402.
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