How is HPV diagnosed and what are the symptoms?
After contracting a papilloma infection, it symptoms may or may not appear. The process of diagnosing HPV includes direct visual examination and a brief review of the patients sexual history. Visible warts are synonymous with the human papilloma virus infection. Genital warts (venereal warts or condyloma acuminata), perianal warts, plantar warts, and common warts etc are also considered symptoms of a human papilloma virus infection. For women, cervical infection can be diagnosed by a colposcopy. In a colposcopy, a magnifying lens called a colposcope is used to see smaller warts. This is a tube-like instrument with a light and lenses which provide a magnified view of the cervix and the nearby vaginal skin. A pap smear is another test that can detect the presence of any “abnormal cells” in the cervix, uterus and vagina that could be caused by a human papilloma virus infection. A new HPV test, the Digene Hybrid Capture II test, checks for HPV DNA within the cervical cells. A swab of cervi
