Vaccination to prevent human papillomavirus infections : From promise to practice (Volume 14, Number 6)

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI) and can cause HPV-related cancers, most of which are cervical cancers, and genital warts. Although the majority of HPV infections are asymptomatic with spontaneous resolution, disease may result from persistent infection with high-risk HPV genotypes. While infection with a high-risk oncogenic HPV type is the underlying cause of virtually all cases of cervical cancer, most infections with high-risk HPV types do not lead to cancer. This is because infection persists only in a small percentage of people; only a small proportion of these persistent infections progress to precancer, and, of these, even fewer lead to invasive cancer.Two HPV types (16 and 18) cause 70% of cervical cancers and contribute to other, less prevalent, noncervical cancers. HPV infections are responsible for nearly all of the 528,000 estimated cervical cancer cases in women each year, accounting for nearly 266,000 deaths yearly. High age-standardised rates of cervical cancer are observed in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asian regions. Low rates are seen in the Eastern Mediterranean region as well as in North America, Western Europe, and Australia. HIV-positive women have a 5-fold elevated risk of developing cervical cancer.