cervical dysplasia?
Is cervical dysplasia always caused by HPV? I recently had an abnormal pap smear, and specifically asked if it was caused by HPV. The nurse told me the results said there was no sign of HPV. But then, someone else told me that HPV is always the cause of dysplasia. Wouldn't the nurse have had to tell me if it was HPV?
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After you got the results back from the 1st pap, did they do another one? They usually will and biopsy it and also find out what strain of HPV that you have.. I have heard that dysplasia can be caused by smoking, the carcinogens in the cigarette tend to travel to your cervix and can cause issues. You can find out a lot about cervical displasia at webmd.com
Yes, almost all cervical dysplasia is caused by HPV. The doctor can ask for a specific HPV test with your pap smear. I would talk directly with your doctor about this and not the nurse, she may not have as much knowldege about the virus as your doctor does, or maybe they did not test for HPV. Many doctors won't test if you have CIN because they assume you have the virus since almost every case of it is caused by HPV. Knowing if you have it or not will not change your outcome or treatment, so they think...why test?
Also, you can have HPV and it lie dormant or inactive, if it is inactive a HPV test will not pick it up. However, since you do have cervical dysplasia at this time I would assume the virus is active.