Pathogenesis of Cancer of the Cervix

  1. H. zur Hausen and
  2. F. Rösl
  1. Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Im Neuenheimer Feld 280, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.

Excerpt

The concept of virus-induced carcinogenesis in humans has a long history. Data from animal systems became available in the first and second decade of this century (for review, see Gross 1983). Yet, it is only 30 years ago that the first human pathogenic virus, the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), subsequently suspected to be linked to specific human tumors, was seen in the electron microscope (Epstein et al. 1964). It took almost these 30 years to accept EBV as a genuine tumor virus, causing at least a proportion of B-cell lymphomas in immunosuppressed individuals (for review, see zur Hausen 1991a). Its role in those malignancies in which EBV genomes had been initially identified (zur Hausen et al. 1970) is even today not fully understood.

During the past 15 years, three new virus groups have been identified which play a role in human cancers: the human T-lymphotropic retrovirus (HTLV), the hepatitis B virus...

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