What Every Woman and Her Daughter Should Know About HPV

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease, affecting 80% of women during their lifetimes. HPV is also the cause of cervical cancer, other types of cancer, and genital warts. Here’s what you need to know about HPV and its vaccine.

Maybe you’ve seen the commercials for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, but you don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Before you shrug it off, consider these facts.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. About 80% of women get at least one of the sexually transmitted types of HPV during their lives.

About 20%-25% of adults ages 18-59 have high-risk genital HPV. High-risk HPV is the type that can cause cancer. Not everyone who has it gets sick — about 6% are diagnosed with cervical cancer. But why take that risk? Instead, learn how the HPV vaccine can help.

Here’s what the medical experts at North Atlanta OB/GYN tell our patients.

How HPV spreads

HPV spreads through all types of sexual contact, including vaginal, oral, and anal. You can pick up the virus by touching your partner’s genitals. Women can pass the virus to women, and men can transmit it to men.

You can spread HPV to your partner even if you don’t have symptoms. Of course, that works both ways. Your partner can give you the virus even when they feel great. You can also give HPV to your baby during childbirth.

HPV causes cervical cancer

Though HPV is a common virus, most women never know they’re infected for two reasons. First, it can take years for symptoms to develop. And second, they may never have symptoms or get sick because their immune system clears the virus.

More than 90% of new HPV infections are cleared within 6-24 months after infection, even the high-risk types of HPV responsible for cancer. In other cases, the virus grows in the cells lining the cervix, gradually causing abnormal cell growth and ultimately turning into cervical cancer.

Your risk of developing cervical cancer depends on the type of HPV — some are more likely to cause cancer than others — and your overall health.

A Pap smear detects HPV and cancerous changes

Once you know that HPV doesn’t cause symptoms, you can understand the importance of getting a Pap smear to detect the virus. All women should have their first Pap smear when they turn 21, then a follow-up Pap every three years.

Cervical cancer grows slowly. With routine Pap smears, we can find HPV and cellular changes early, while they’re still curable.

When we take a Pap smear during your well-woman exam, we gently brush or scrape a sample of cells from your cervix, put the sample on a slide, and send it to a lab where specialists evaluate the cells.

The lab sends us a report describing what they found. For example, your Pap may be negative, meaning all the cells were normal. You could have mild abnormalities caused by HPV, severe abnormalities likely to become cervical cancer, or cancerous cells.

If you have mild abnormalities, we typically repeat the Pap smear in several months. In many cases, the cell sample was taken during an active HPV infection that your body clears away in a few months.

When your results are moderate to severe, or if mild changes don’t improve in a few months, we perform an in-office colposcopy to identify and remove abnormal cells on your cervix. We send the biopsies to a lab where they’re diagnosed as noncancerous or cancerous.

The HPV vaccine prevents several types of cancer

An HPV vaccine prevents genital warts as well as:

Cervical cancer
Vulvar cancer
Vaginal cancer
Anal cancer
Precancerous cervical, vulvar, vaginal, and anal lesions

These are the two most important things to know about the HPV vaccine:

HPV vaccines only protect you from future infections

The vaccine has no effect on an HPV infection or HPV-caused disease that you already have before you get the vaccine. It can only prevent problems from HPV you’re exposed to after the vaccine.

HPV vaccines should be administered at an early age

HPV vaccinations are safe for children, and getting the vaccine at an early age means they’re protected before they become sexually active and at risk for HPV. The shot can be given to children and adolescents as early as 9 years old and up to age 45.

If you have any questions about HPV or the vaccine, contact North Atlanta OB/GYN by phone or online today to set up an appointment. We serve patients in Alpharetta, Marietta, and Atlanta, Georgia.