Genital HPV Infection: Symptoms, Spread, Prevention and Cancer

Key points

• Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a common sexually transmitted infection (STI), and the problems it causes can be treated.
• Anyone who is sexually active can get it.

What HPV is

HPV is the most common STI, with many types. Most cause no problems; some cause genital warts and some cause cancers. Vaccines prevent these. HPV is not the same virus as HIV or HSV (herpes).

Usually silent, sometimes serious

• Most people with HPV never have symptoms or health problems.
• In 9 out of 10 cases it clears on its own within two years.
• When it doesn't, it can cause genital warts or cancer. The types that cause warts don't cause cancer.

See a provider if you notice warts, unusual growths, lumps or sores in the genital area, mouth or throat.

Genital warts are usually a small bump or group of bumps — small or large, raised or flat, or cauliflower-shaped. They may go away, stay the same or grow, and can come back after treatment. A provider can usually diagnose them by looking.

How it spreads

• Mostly through vaginal or anal sex, and oral sex; also through close skin-to-skin contact during sex.
• Someone can pass it on without any signs or symptoms.
• You can get it from one partner, and symptoms can appear years later — so it's hard to know when you got it.

Lowering your risk

• Get vaccinated: the vaccine is safe and effective against HPV diseases, including cancers, when given at the recommended ages.
• Get screened for cervical cancer: routine screening for women aged 21 to 65 can prevent it.
• If you're sexually active, use condoms correctly every time — though HPV can infect skin a condom doesn't cover — and consider a mutually monogamous relationship.
• If you or a partner have genital warts, stop having sex until they're gone. It's not known how long HPV can spread after warts disappear.

Pregnancy: pregnant women with HPV can get genital warts or abnormal cervical cell changes; keep up routine cervical screening during pregnancy.

Testing

• There's no test for a person's overall "HPV status," and no approved test for HPV in the mouth or throat.
• HPV tests are used to screen for cervical cancer in women 30 and older — not in men, adolescents or women under 30.
• Many people learn they have HPV from genital warts, an abnormal Pap test, or only when more serious problems such as cancer develop.

Treatment

There's no treatment for the virus itself, but there is for its effects:

• Genital warts: treatment from a provider or prescription medicine.
• Cervical precancer: found by routine Pap tests and follow-up, before cancer develops.
• Other HPV cancers: more treatable when found early (see cancer.org).

HPV and cancer

HPV can cause cervical cancer and other cancers — of the vulva, vagina, penis and anus, and oropharyngeal cancer in the back of the throat, including the base of the tongue and tonsils. Cancer can take years or decades to develop. There's no way to know who will get it; people with weak immune systems, including those with HIV, may be less able to fight HPV off.

Sources

Based on "About Genital HPV Infection," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain. More: CDC's STI fact sheets, CDC-INFO and the American Sexual Health Association. The page's stock photo collage is not reproduced.