Sixty-nine percent of Americans are infected with Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).
The virus can lead to serious health complications such as genital warts, cervical cancer, and throat cancer, an NYU Langone Medical Center news release reported.
"Our study offers initial and broad evidence of a seemingly 'normal' HPV viral biome in people that does not necessarily cause disease and that could very well mimic the highly varied bacterial environment in the body, or microbiome, which is key to maintaining good health," senior study investigator and NYU Langone pathologist Zhiheng Pei, MD, PhD. Dr. Pei, an associate professor at NYU Langone, said in the news release.
The virus can be contracted from skin-to-skin contact, and researchers predict almost everyone in the United States will contract it at one point in their lives. Some strains of the virus are harmless and others will lie dormant for years.
The researchers looked at data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Human Microbiome Project. The study encompassed genetic material from 748 tissue swabs taken from participants.
The team analyzed the DNA using a technique called "shotgun firing," which analyzes long strands of DNA through random firing patterns; the researchers compared it to pixels in a photo.
Pei said people should not be overly concerned about the statistics, but that getting vaccinated for cancer-causing strains of HPV is a "good idea."
The researchers detected 109 HPV strains of the 148 known in the study participants. The study highlights the weakness of current clinical testing, which can only detect a few strains of the virus.
"Broader detection methods and comprehensive diagnostic tests are needed to more accurately assess people's 'true' HPV infection status," the news release reported.
In the future the researchers plan to investigate the role of non-cancer-causing HPV types in various organs of the body.
