HPV or Human Papilloma Virus is a common sexually transmitted disease. It affects a huge number of people worldwide.

Have you ever thought about what happens after someone gets diagnosed with HPV? Does it disappear? Or will it be present indefinitely? Let’s find out.

Karepedia is here to help you with this. Let’s delve into the details of HPV, its life cycle and other important insights related to it.

What is HPV?

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection among sexually active people. It is caused by the Human Papilloma Virus. There are more than 100 types of HPV viruses that may infect your body.

This virus is known to cause genital warts and even cervical cancer in females and penile cancer in males. Relax folks, only a few strains of this virus have that potential.

Life Cycle of HPV

The virus enters your body from contact with the infected person through skin contact of your genital tract or your mouth. Though most of the infections heal on their own and do not go up to causing a lesion.

A lesion is formed when the virus penetrates deep into the skin and starts replicating itself inside your body. These lesions don’t usually progress towards malignancy. It does so once the virus surpasses the body’s immune cells and spreads to the nearby glands.

Does HPV Go Away On Its Own?

• Yes, HPV does go away over time. The virus takes about 2 years to go away on its own. Potential of the body to resolve the HPV virus depends on the viral load.

• Usually, the low-risk variant of HPV goes away within a year. You may be suffering from HPV and unaware of the fact, as about 90% of the people remain asymptomatic.

• Your body’s immune cells fight to get rid of the virus. Some people get recurrent attacks of the disease while some don’t.

• Since it's known that HPV goes away on its own, there are no treatment options available. You can get cured once warts develop or cervical cancer is confirmed.

Who Should Get the HPV Vaccine?

Ideally vaccines should be taken by pre-teens and teenagers who commence in the age of getting sexually active. In India, it is recommended that you should vaccinate your female child between the age group of 9 to 14 years.

You can take the vaccine at the latter stages of life up to 65 years. Remember, the vaccine cannot treat your HPV symptoms once you have it, nor can it give you protection against all the strains of HPV.

The vaccine is designed to target the high-risk strains and prevent the progression to cancer. This vaccine will protect you from chances of developing cervical cancer or spreading the virus to your male partners.

Management and prevention strategies

Most of the time, you will be unaware of your infection status, since the virus remains dormant inside you and your immune cells fight to get rid of HPV within a year or two.

It usually takes years or decades to transform into cancerous form from a simple HPV infection.

So, there doesn’t remain much to do to manage HPV at its early stage. Neither is there any test available to test for HPV infection in your body with full efficacy.

You can get a regular cervical cancer examination done to stay safe.

Prevention measures are the same for all sexually transmitted infections.

1. Practise safe sex: Always use a condom to protect yourself from getting or spreading the infection to your partner. 2. Refrain from touching raw sores: HPV spreads from skin to skin contact also. Touching genitals can also transmit the virus. 3. Abstain from having multiple partners: Studies found that persons who practise monogamous sex are at lower risk of getting the virus than those who have multiple partners. 4. Get vaccinated: Vaccines will prevent the progression of HPV into cancer.

As per CDC guidelines, females aged between 21 to 29 years should have a Pap smear test every 3 years. Those females aged 30 to 65 years should have a Pap smear test every 3 to 5 years, depending on your doctor’s prescriptions.

Studies say that, for females HPV does go away with age, which means the chance of getting HPV by a female reduces with age. There is no such evidence found for males.

As HPV goes away on its own, there is no treatment present, but if your HPV progresses to form genital warts you can definitely get these treatments:

• Cold knife colonisation: The procedure that involves a scalpel to remove the abnormal tissue.
• Cryotherapy: This is done by a doctor who uses a cold probe to freeze and destroy your abnormal tissue.
• Laser therapy: Here, a laser beam is used to destroy the abnormal tissue.
• Loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP): This is done using a thin wire loop with an electrical current.

If you have high risk HPV, that surpasses your body’s immunity to cause cancer, available treatment options include surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

So, the good news is – yes, HPV does go away with time. Till then you need to be cautious not to catch the virus. Boost up your immunity and stay healthy.

You may be unaware that you are carrying the disease or not, so its always advisable to practise safe sexual habits. Don’t forget to vaccinate your teenage daughters to prevent them from any unforeseen circumstances of cervical cancer.