With increasing age, a larger proportion of screen-detected HPV infections represent persistent HPV infections.
Persistent HPV infections, particularly with high-risk HPV such as HPV 16, are involved in the carcinogenesis of a subset of oropharyngeal cancers.
6MPI: 6-month persistent HPV infection; CI: confidence interval; HPV: human papillomavirus; HPVI: HPV infection of any duration; HR: Hazard ratio.
In addition, it is emphasised that the specificity of the HPV analysis increases with age, concomitant with the decreasing prevalence of persistent HPV infections.
Although most HPV-related genital lesions resolve spontaneously within 1-2 years, there is no specific treatment for persistent HPV infection [ 10].
Although most HPV infections cause no symptoms and clear the body in less than a year, persistent HPV can cause cervical cancer and genital warts.
Asymptomatic, persistent HPV infections are not only found in genital tract, but also on oral mucosa.
Although some persistent HPV infections progress to cervical cancer, host immunity is generally able to clear most HPV infections.
Putatively licensable vaccines against the hrHPVs have been developed and are approaching clinical phase III trials that use persistent HPV infection as end point.
Among study participants who completed all three doses of the vaccine, it was 85.6percentt effective at preventing persistent HPV infection and was almost 100percentt effective at preventing genital warts (both were compared with a placebo group).
Therefore, we explored the association between persistent HPV infections and HIV risk in study participants.
