OBJECTIVE:
To find out the
prevalence of
human papilloma virus (HPV) in
adolescent girls and to access the nonsexual
transmission of HPV from their
mother by using the same old cloth used by their
mother.
METHOD:
Menstrual pads were collected from the
women of
age group years to find out the presence of HPV and whether it can be used as a
cervical cancer screening tool. The results of the said study have been published in the European Journal of
Cancer Prevention. During this study,
menstrual pads of the
daughters of participating
women were collected to see the nonsexual
transmission of HPV. After conducting the
health education and obtaining the
informed consent, we interviewed 57
mothers (
age group 30–50, married, sexually active) and
daughters [
age group 12–18,
unmarried (not exposed to
sex)] from the
rural area of Pune district of Maharashtra
state,
India. The
menstrual pads were collected and transported to Mumbai for
polymerase chain reaction (
PCR) testing. HPV testing was carried out by
PCR.
RESULTS:
Out of 57, 28 (49%)
daughters and 23 (40.4%)
mothers provided
menstrual pad. Out of 23
mothers, one was HPV positive [4.3% 95%
confidence interval (CI) 0.2–23.0] and out of 28
girls, 3 (10.7% 95% CI 2.0–33.0) were HPV positive. The
daughter, whose
mother was HPV positive, had
negative result for HPV.
CONCLUSION:
The HPV
prevalence in
adolescence girls was 10.7%. There may be other nonsexual medium that might have caused HPV in
adolescence girls, which
needs further
research.