Recently, it has been widely recognized that human papillomavirus (HPV) infection plays an important role in the etiology of carcinoma of the cervix. Paraffin sections of cervical malignancies and premalignancies were screened for the presence of papillomavirus antigen by means of peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) method. No case of invasive carcinoma, carcinoma in situ or normal cervix revealed positive HPV staining. In 81 cases (18%) of 461 cervical dysplasias, positive reaction for HPV was detected as brown intranuclear precipitates. The mean age of the women with HPV was significantly lower than that of women without HPV. Characteristic findings of histology of the dysplasias with HPV were koilocytosis and binucleation.
