Virtually all cervical cancers are caused by HPV infections, with just two HPV types, 16 and 18, responsible for about 70 percent of all cases, according to the National Cancer Institute. Scientists have presumed for decades that the cervical cancers that develop from HPV infection arise in a specific location in the cervix. Now, new research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in close collaboration with Harvard Medical School and the Agency for Science Technology and Research in Singapore finds that a specific population of cells that are found only in the region of the cervix called the ‘squamo-columnar junction’ can become cancerous when infected with HPV while other cells in the cervix apparently do not. This research is published online the week of June 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
