Research Paper Example on Human Papilloma Virus
Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is so common nowadays that Center of Disease Control estimates that at some point in life all sexually active people will be infected with the HPV, unless a person gets vaccinated (CDC 2021). There are over 200 types of the virus that have been identified. Prevalence of strains vary from country-to-country, but one of the most dangerous strains that can be found everywhere and causes many types of cancers is HPV-16 (Long et al., 2018).
HPV is naked icosahedral-shaped virus with double strained circular DNA from Papillomaviridae family with the affinity for squamous epithelia of the skin and mucosae (Petca et al., 2020). The diversity in genome of HPV can be seen in noncoding regions of DNA, while capsid genes are the most preserved (Chen et al., 2018). The target cells are the cells of the basal layer where viral DNA is replicated with hosts DNA, as well it is transcribed into mRNA (Feller et al., 2009). Some of the important genes that high-risk HPV types carry are the proteins that help and encourage the growth of cell (Ryndock & Meyers, 2014). At the time of the discovery of HPV, it was thought to be the only virus that affects the epithelium only producing condylomas, warts, lesions, but recently it was correlated with different cancers (Ryndock & Meyers, 2014).
The non-cancerous types of HPV cause skin and anogenital warts, and the cancerous types are found to be the reason in many cases of oropharyngeal and anogenital cancers (Kombe Kombe et al., 2021). The case with HPV is amusing because cancer has been linked to the actual cause of it with Bradford–Hill criteria for causality; therefore, people can avoid having high possibility of cervical cancer with new screening methods, and as long as person gets vaccinated or do not get infected (Gravitt & Winer, 2017). The symptoms and related diseases are depended on viral type; researchers from the dental field stated that HPV-16 is responsible oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma and high risk anogenital squamous cell carcinoma. Types 11 and 6 are mostly responsible for condylomas (Feller et al., 2009).
There are several ways to get infected: the most known is sexual transmission, also mother-to-child, self-inoculation, through highly used surfaces and transmission in hospital (Ryndock & Meyers, 2014). One way of getting infected in a hospital setting is through intravaginal ultrasound: the cervix or vaginal wall come into close contact with the probe (Casalegno et al., 2012). According to researchers, considerate number of probes contaminated with high-risk HPV, including HPV-16, 31, that got transmitted to women (Casalegno et al., 2012). The survival of the virus is enormous, and it can stay for days on open surfaces waiting for a host (Ryndock & Meyers, 2014).
When HPV-16 infects the human body (young women at high risk) there could be noticeable changes in anogenital epithelia while virus in the productive stage. Within a year or two the epithelia usually get cleared and seems that symptoms of virus disappear: this period known as “viral clearance” (Gravitt & Winer, 2017). During this crucial time of lesions and symptoms, it is important to get tested for HPV, because after, the virus will enter latent stage, detection will be harder. The dangerous stage of the infection is when the spread of the virus in the body happens rapidly but there are no symptoms (Feller et al., 2009).
The best preventive measure that people currently have is vaccination: three-dose vaccine decreases cervical abnormalities, warts appearance, even reducing transmission of virus by already infected people (Petca et al., 2020). In order to control spread of HPV in hospital settings, in case of intravaginal ultrasound it is important to find a better way to disinfect sensitive equipment as well as imposing better sanitary control (Casalegno et al., 2012). Treatment for warts includes topical application that induces necrosis and lesion destructions.
