Summary The prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and other risk factors were studied in a high risk area for cervical cancer (Greenland) Epidemiological research has long pointed to cancer of the cervix uteri as a sexually transmitted disease (Brinton & Fraumeni, 1986). For more than a decade, human papillomavirus (HPV) has been suggested to play an important role in cervical carcinogenesis (zur Hausen, 1989). Not only has HPV DNA been detected in more than 90% of all cervical carcinoma samples tested, but it has also recently been shown that human keratinocytes immortalised with HPV DNA, turn malignant after prolonged cultivation (Hurlin et al., 1991;Pecoraro et al., 1991). If HPV is a main causal agent, one would anticipate a geographical accordance between incidence of cervical cancer and prevalence of HPV infection. On this background we were surprised that our population-based comparison showed that the prevalence of HPV 16/18 detection was higher in Denmark (13.0%) than in Greenland (8.8%) in spite of the cervical cancer incidence being five times higher in Greenland (Kjaer et al., 1988). By contrast, the high risk Greenlandic women were characterised by e.g. a higher number of sexual partners and earlier age at first intercourse compared with Danish women (Kjaer et al., 1989). Because of the surprising lack of correspondence between HPV 16/18 prevalence and incidence of cervical cancer and in view of the further development of new DNA hybridisation techniques, we decided to undertake a renewed comparative study in the same geographical areas. In addition, we reinvestigated the association between HPV and HSV infection and the number of sexual partners like in the previous investigation (Kjaer et al., 1990
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