"I went to the gynecologist, and my doctor said something about HPV. What's HPV?"

Human Papillomavirus, or HPV for short, is the virus that causes warts. And by this, I mean any kind of wart - the wart you have on your elbow, the plantar's wart on the bottom of your foot, the skin tags that are on your neck. There are more than 70 different kinds of HPV - and 30-some of these cause genital HPV, which is what your doctor is talking about.

Genital HPV is not necessarily "genital warts." The 30 strains that infect the genital area are divided into 2 subcategories: Genital Warts and Cervical Dysplasia.
Genital warts may look something like skin tags - they are not always obvious warts. In fact, sometimes they may be so tiny that a doctor has to use a magnifying glass to see them. They only grow to large sizes if they are left untreated. Genital warts do not lead to cancer.
Cervical dysplasia is the fancy term for an abnormal pap smear. Cervical dysplasia is not warts. Rather, it is when the cells in the cervix undergo abnormal changes that may lead to cancer. Cervical dysplasia only becomes cancer after it has been left untreated for at least several years.

The only reason that a doctor will give you a pap smear every year is to see whether or not you have a dysplasia-causing HPV strain in your body. If you get regular paps, you won't be significantly at risk for cancer, because the doctor will treat any abnormal cells before they can progress.

Having genital warts does not mean you will get cervical cancer, as having an abnormal pap smear does not mean you will get warts. If you only have one strain, you will only get one thing - warts OR an abnormal pap. This holds true EXCEPT for strain 16, which normally causes dysplasia, but can also cause “condyloma planum,” or flat warts (according to ARHP). Note, however, that these are not the normal raised warts that the wart strains cause. The only way you could get both warts and dysplasia is if you had more than one kind of HPV, or if you had strain 16.

You get HPV from having sex with an infected partner. Some people use condoms and still get the virus, so condoms are not entirely reliable when it comes to HPV. HPV is really, really common - because most people never show symptoms, no one knows they have it. Experts think that only about 1-2% of the people with wart-causing HPV and 3-5% of the people with dysplasia-causing HPV ever get diagnosed.

For more detailed information, read my dysplasia page, my condoms page, and my FAQ page.


References:
*ashastd.org (American Social Health Assoc.)
*the HPV hotline