Study: Half of All Sexually Active Women Have HPV Disease

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infects more than half of all women who have been sexually active for at least several years, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Vol. 285; No 23: P 2995-3002). Researchers who tracked hundreds of San Francisco Bay Area women over a 10-year period believe the virus could end up affecting more than two-thirds of all women during their lifetime. "The risk of acquiring HPV is actually quite high. A woman's lifetime risk is around 70 percent," said lead author Barbara Moscicki, M.D., a researcher at the University of California-San Francisco.

The study, which involved more than 800 women since 1990, supports many prior assumptions about HPV -- primarily that the STD is the leading cause of cervical cancer. But it also indicates that HPV is not necessarily a lifetime infection, as was previously thought, and it does not lead to cervical cancer in the majority of women who get it. HPV is, however, very easy to catch: With each new partner a woman took, her risk of HPV infection jumped tenfold. Condoms provide only minimal protection from the virus as they don't cover enough skin. HPV spreads through vaginal, anal, and sometimes oral sex and skin-to-skin contact in the genital region.

Among the study's encouraging findings: Less than one-third of women with HPV develop lesions that put them at risk of cervical cancer. And 90 percent of those women had strong enough immune systems that the lesions gradually went away -- along with their chances of getting cervical cancer. Three years after being exposed to the virus, most women no longer had it, although some had become infected again. Previous studies, have found HPV in 99.7 percent of women with cervical cancer.

There is no cure for HPV, but there are ways to reduce risk. Oral contraceptives cut the study participants' risk of HPV in half. Using latex condoms and limiting the number of sexual partners helps reduce the virus's spread. Quitting smoking reduces the risk of cervical cancer. And regular Pap smears are effective at finding precancerous cells in the cervix.

Back to other CDC news for June 21, 2001

Previous Updates | Search the CDC archive