Even though there is no clear evidence for why infection with human papillomavirus develops into cancer in some women, but not in others, several risk factors have been identified that are considered as increasing the chance of cancer development. It is important to notice that risk factors only suggest a correlation but not a direct causation for getting cervical cancer. The most common among these risk factors are:
- frequent change of sex partners (Baseman and Koutsky 2005) and unprotected sex as it increases the number of people one can get the disease from
- infection with certain types of HPV, such as HPV 16 and HPV 18 as they are seen as the main culprits in the development of the disease due to their strong persistence (Burk, Chen and Van Doorslaer 2009)
Graph about the distribution of prevalence (a), persistence (b) and progression (c) of oncogenic vs non-oncogenic HPVs in a population-based study of 100, 000 women from Costa Rica. It shows the importance of HPV 16 and HPV 18 presence as an indicator for cancer development.
- smoking as it makes the immune system less effective in fighting off the HPV virus (Baseman and Koutsky 2005) and because tobacco might be damaging the cervix cells (American Cancer Society 2011)
- use of oral contraceptives (Baseman and Koutsky 2005)
- a weakened or suppressed immune system as a result of AIDS, organ transplant or autoimmune disease (American Cancer Society 2011; Palefsky and Holly 1995)
- family history of cervical cancer can increase one’s chances by 2-3 times (American Cancer Society 2011). However, this is not because there is a genetic cause for the disease but rather because individuals with a certain genetic make-up might be less susceptible to HPV infections and others again display an enhanced ability to repair damaged cells ( He, et al. 2008)
- age over 50 for development of invasive cancer and age below 30 for HSIL (Baseman and Koutsky)
