How Long Can HPV Remain Dormant?

Posted on Thu, 12 Mar 2015

Question: Can HPV have been acquired 30 years ago and lay dormant, just showing up on a pap smear now

Answered by Dr. Srilatha Myaka (53 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
HPV is common infection in reproductive age

Detailed Answer:

Hello dear,welcome to healthcare magic.

I understand your concern.

In my opinion HPV infection is common in childbearing age and many have no symptoms and clears spontaneously without treatment.

There are many types of HPV.Some are associated with warts,some associated with
cervical cancer and some cause no symptoms.

These HPV strains associated with cancer might cause precancerous changes without causing any external symptoms.So there might be possibility of HPV being contacted during young age and persisting in body.

If you get abnormal pap smear I would suggest you to go for colposcopy and DNA test of pap sample to detect DNA of HPV virus and to know the risk of cancer.

Don't worry madam pap smear is not confirmatory unless further tests are done.

Hope this satisfies your query.

Feel free to ask any more queries.

Best regards...Dr srilatha

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj