Human Papillomavirus and Cervical Cancer Screening

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is responsible for the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide. Cervical cancer (CC) is a severe disease that still has a high mortality rate in many countries. Persistent infection by the human papillomavirus is the necessary cause of premalignant lesions, which are precursors of CC. Screening with cytology or Pap smear have been successful in the last few years, but scientific evidence suggests that these techniques should be replaced with HPV DNA detection as the initial test when screening.  There are several commercial techniques approved by the FDA for the detection of high oncological risk HPV genotypes, which have been evaluated for the population screening of 30-65-year-old women. The aim of this article is to review some virologic aspects of HPV and its relationship with cervical cancer screening. Consequently, we suggest that a new algorithm based on individualized detection of genotypes 16 and 18 should be implemented in countries where there is no population-based screening.