Doctors debunk nine myths about HPV & cervical cancer.
byJR Thorpe
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If you have a cervix, tests for human papilloma virus (HPV) and Pap smears have likely been part of your health checks since your early twenties. Uncomfortable though it can be to make small talk with a gynecologist who's extracting cells from your pelvis, check-ups are a key part of your health arsenal, up there with brushing your teeth and trying to eat vegetables once in a while. But HPV and its link to cervical cancer can attract a lot of myths and misconceptions.
Here are the basics. You can catch HPV through sexual intercourse — no, not through a toilet seat or being sneezed on. It's extremely common — something like 80% of people have it — and comes in many varieties, many completely benign. According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 100 types of HPV, only 14 of which have been linked to any kind of cancer — but the HPV vaccine, Gardasil 9, protects against nine of those strains. For around 44,000 people in the U.S. per year, the presence of certain HPV strains can spark the development of cervical, oral, anal or vulvar cancers.
If you do test positive for HPV, it's not the end of the world — and it's important to be able to navigate what the result means in terms of your cancer risk. Here are some things you might have heard about HPV and cervical cancer, sorted.
Studies cited:
Kaufman, H.M., Alagia, D.P., Chen, Z., et al. (2020) Contributions of Liquid-Based (Papanicolaou) Cytology and Human Papillomavirus Testing in Cotesting for Detection of Cervical Cancer and Precancer in the United States, American Journal of Clinical Pathology, , aqaa074, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcp/aqaa074
Liu, Z. C., Liu, W. D., Liu, Y. H., Ye, X. H., & Chen, S. D. (2015). Multiple Sexual Partners as a Potential Independent Risk Factor for Cervical Cancer: a Meta-analysis of Epidemiological Studies. Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention : APJCP, 16(9), 3893–3900. https://doi.org/10.7314/apjcp.2015.16.9.3893
Reiter, P. L., & McRee, A. L. (2017). HPV infection among a population-based sample of sexual minority women from USA. Sexually transmitted infections, 93(1), 25–31. https://doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2016-052536
Shanmugasundaram, S., & You, J. (2017). Targeting Persistent Human Papillomavirus Infection. Viruses, 9(8), 229. https://doi.org/10.3390/v9080229