HPV and Mild Dysplasia

If a woman is affected by HPV and mild dysplasia, she is more likely to develop cervical cancer. HPV or Human Papilloma Virus infection is one of the most frequent causes of female genital diseases. Very often this virus is transmitted during sexual contacts and affects the cervix. It has an ability to induce unusual cellular changes in the cervical tissue. These changes can be discovered only through microscopic examination. Specialists in cervical pathology use the term cervical dysplasia to describe the presence of unusual changes in the cervical epithelial cells. In some cases this condition may degenerate into malignancy, especially if it is not treated.

If cervical dysplasia is found, the doctor needs to define the stage of the condition, which can be mild, moderate or severe, in order to choose an optimal management for the patient. The stage of cervical dysplasia is defined according to the amount of abnormal changes in the epithelium: the more abnormal changes are present, the more advanced stage is diagnosed. Thus, mild cervical dysplasia is diagnosed if the changes do not involve more than one third of the thickness of the epithelium. If both infection with HPV and mild dysplasia are detected, there is a high risk that dysplasia progress into more advanced stages.

It has been shown that the greatest risk for cancer of the cervix is observed in women with human papillomavirus infection. Cancer of the cervix may take several years to develop. Although there are a lot of different factors that increase chances for cancer, the presence of HPV remains the primary risk factor. This is especially true for the cases of high oncogenic risk HPV types which are detected in almost all cervical cancers. Since it is critical to evaluate the risk of cancer in case of cervical dysplasia it is strongly recommended for women with this condition to have HPV DNA test. If the results of the tests show the patient has both HPV and mild dysplasia, more medical attention should be devoted to this case.

The assessment of the cervical epithelium and detection of infectious diseases may be performed by different ways. Most often cervical pathologies are found during Pap test (Papanicolaou test). It is a simple procedure which consists of taking cells from the cervical surface and evaluating them under microscope. Also, other tests may be used to examine women with HPV and mild dysplasia, such as colposcopic examination, biopsy, HPV testing.