[Human papilloma virus and cervical cancer]

Cervical cancer (CC) is the second most common cause of death from cancer among women worldwide and about 80% of the half of million new cases detected every year, occurs in less-developed countries. Human papillomavirus is an obligate factor for the development of CC, since some HPVtype are detected in 100% of CC. HPV16 and HPV18 are the most common viral types, accounting for about 50% and 15% of CC, respectively. HPV infection is the most common sexual transmitted infection, with an estimated prevalence of about 2-44% among sexually active young women. However, only a very small fraction of these infections evolve to CC (1-2 out of 1000), indicating that some other factors should be important in the evolution of the disease. Preventive vaccines against HPVs 16 and 18 have been developed, and in phase III clinical trials they have demonstrated 100% efficacy for prevention of persistent infection and high risk cervical squamous intraepithelial neoplasias positive for these HPV types, suggesting that these vaccines, if made widely available, will dramatically reduce the burden of CC.