Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)

The Organism

HPV is short for "human papilloma virus," also known as the "papillomavirus". In most cases, HPV is transmitted through sexual contact. It is considered the main sexually transmitted infection (STI) in the United States(Parkin , 2006). The virus is spread through sexual contact. It must be the direct contact of skin to skin with the penis, scrotum, vagina, vulva, anus, mouth or other body part of an infected person for transmission to occur. HPV is not transmitted by blood.

Symptoms

Genital warts are a sign of HPV infection. However, in most cases, HPV infection is a "discreet". In other words, many infected individuals who show no obvious sign of infection. HPV affect the anogenital region of both the man and of woman. In women, this includes the vulva, cervix and anus. In humans, this region includes the penis, scrotum and anus. Because of these physical differences due to gender, HPV affects men and women differently. In women, HPV infection can affect the cells of the cervix as follows: inactive or latent infection, where the affected cells remain normal(Winer ,2006). There are no signs or symptoms of infection so that you cannot ever know that you are infected. Your body fights the virus in ways that are not clear.active infection when the infected cells of the cervix showed microscopic changes. These abnormal changes can be detected with a Pap test that examines a sample of cells from the cervix.

Evolution

Depending on the type of HPV present, the infection can progress to one or other of two extremes:

The abnormal cells "go away spontaneously," that is to say that the infection becomes inactive and no longer poses a significant health problem. An inactive infection can become active again without knowing clearly why. Abnormal cervical cells may evolve slowly toward cervical cancer of the uterus. According to tests, over 90% of women afflicted with cancer of the cervix also have HPV(Winer ,2006).As for the man to the woman, HPV can affect the skin of the genital area by developing warts called condylomas. These have genital warts look like small cauliflower or they are flat. Most types of HPV are benign, that is to say they do not cause cancer. We have identified about 13 types of HPV that are linked with different types of cancers of the anus, penis, vulva and cervix. (Abbas ,2010)

The Disease

Epidemiology

All cancers are caused by HPV in the cervix. The types of virus papilloma human beings may be divided into low-risk HPV, which attack the skin and high-risk HPV, which attack the mucous membranes. It is estimated that over 70% of women contract genital HPV infection in their lifetime, but the vast majority of these infections is likely to disappear spontaneously within a few months due to their immune system(Parkin , 2006) . Only in case of persistence over time of high-risk HPV infections can be oncogenic, in a minority of cases over several years, the development of a malignant ...