Cigarette smoking is an independent risk factor for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in young women: a longitudinal study.

Repeated measurements of smoking, cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) status and sexual behaviour were used to measure the risk of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) in relation to changes in smoking and cervical HPV status, and to explore the impact of smoking on the acquisition and duration of incident cervical HPV infection. Included in this longitudinal analysis are 1485 women aged 15-19 years: 1075 were HPV-negative and cytologically normal at recruitment; 410 were HPV-positive, cytologically abnormal or both, at this time. Women re-attended every 6 months, when samples were taken for cytological and virological examination.

Proximity of first intercourse to menarche and the risk of human papillomavirus infection: a longitudinal study.

Cross-sectional studies have suggested that compared with women who delay the start of their sexual career, those who first have intercourse soon after menarche are more susceptible to cervical human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and thus have a greater risk of cervical neoplasia. We describe, using longitudinal observations, how the risk of infection with HPV varies with the interval between menarche and first intercourse in 474 women aged 15-19 recruited within 12 months of first intercourse and before the acquisition of a second sexual partner. One hundred forty-five women became HPV-positive; the cumulative risk of HPV infection 3 years after first intercourse was 45.

Human papillomavirus type 18 and rapidly progressing cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.

Background: Human papillomavirus type 18 (HPV-18) is the second most frequent of the HPV types detected when squamous-cell cancer is diagnosed and the type most strongly associated with adenocarcinoma of the cervix. However, in cross-sectional studies, HPV-18 is rarely detected at the time of diagnosis of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). We used a longitudinal study design to describe the occurrence of cytological abnormality after incident HPV-18 and HPV-16 infections.

Changes in expression of the human homologue of the Drosophila discs large tumour suppressor protein in high-grade premalignant cervical neoplasias.

The Drosophila tumour suppressor discs large (Dlg) is a cell-junction localized protein that is required for the maintenance of epithelial cyto-architecture and the negative control of cell proliferation. The mammalian homologue is likely to have a similar mode of action, and therefore functional perturbation of this protein may be linked to the development of epithelial-derived cancers. The finding that several unrelated viral oncoproteins, including the E6 protein of oncogenic human papillomaviruses, bind to the human homologue of Dlg (hDlg) supports this proposition.