HPV, which stands for the human papilloma virus, is a double-stranded, 8 kilobase, DNA virus, and it infects all of us. Yes, maybe even you. Eighty percent of all sexually active women and men get this virus at one time in their lives. So what does that mean? It means that 20 million Americans are infected with HPV at any given time. Six million a year, and again, essentially all cervical cancers have this HPV viral gene integrated right into the chromosome of the cancer. So the good news is, we get this virus; most women or men never knew they had it and get over it, and we will talk about that. It is important that you also realize that not every virus has the same seriousness, if you will. We have low-risk viruses, and I listed them here on this slide. We also have high-risk viruses that are also listed. Low-risk viruses cause warts, and I will get into that, and high-risk viruses cause cancer. I put here in yellow, 6 and 11 are the most common low-risk types, and 16 and 18 are the most common high-risk types because those are the four types that are currently integrated into the HPV vaccine.
[8] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Genital HPV Infection
Fact Sheet. http://www.cdc.gov/STD/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htm.
