Infection to Cancer—Finding Useful Biomarkers for Predicting Risk of Progression to Cancer

With a lifetime risk of high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) infection around 80% and less than 1% of those infections leading to cervical cancer, the development of a cervical carcinoma is a rare complication of hrHPV infection. How this happens is discussed in detail in Section 1 of the book and in Chapter 19, Clinical trials of human papillomavirus vaccines. Most infections are cleared by the host immune system within 2 years and do not always produce a definite dysplastic lesion. Several determinants have been found to influence the progression of oncogenic HPV infection, such as smoking, number of sexual partners, contraceptive use, and an effective immune response. Cervical cancer develops through a series of stages and takes years. The large majority of HPV lesions, however, are productive lesions which produce and shed viral particles without signs of cellular transformation. The morphology of …