@shilolo has given you good information. I’m a GYN nurse practitioner, so I see women with HPV a lot.
HPV Human Papilloma Virus has more than 100 strains aka subtypes they’re viruses, and can be dormant for a long time and just like a cold virus can be transmitted by someone who has no obvious sign of carrying the virus. Condoms give only partial protection, because they’re only a barrier for penis and vagina – theyre’s a lot of other skin that comes in contact during sex and HPV can be transmitted that way.
Because of all this, it’s the most common STD out there, although some people never develop clinical disease like a visible wart or abnormal pap and as shilolo mentioned, healthy people will frequently clear the virus from their system after a year or two.
One study done on college women found that 29% of them showed lab evidence of HPV infection from their first partner. It’s estimated that 75–80% of sexually active adults will acquire a genital HPV infection before age 50 again,based on lab evidence.
Two strains cause 80–90% of external genital warts aka condyloma and there are about 30 strains that can infect the cervix and cause abnormal Pap smears. Of the cervical HPV strains, 15 of them fall into a group categorized as high risk for progressing into cancer. The others are considered low risk, in that they may cause some mildly abnormal cell changes, but will usually clear without treatment and aren’t likely to become fullblown cancer. Even the high risk types can clear up on their own while it’s still in the pre-cancerous phase.
When I order high risk HPV testing, my lab does what’s called a DNA probe on a liquid based pap smear sample and the report tells me whether it’s positive or negative for the presence of one of the 15 high risk types. It doesn’t specify which one. Identification of a specific strain might be available in a research setting, but not in typical clinical practice, because from a practical point of view, it doesn’t matter. We can’t treat the virus, only the cell abnormalities that might develop as a result of the virus.
TMI?