A new U.S research has found that — a generation of female teens born with HIV who are now reaching sexual maturity have a higher number of cervical abnormalities.
Researchers monitored the rate of first-time pregnancies, genital health and Pap test results of 638 girls, ages 13 and over, who became infected with HIV around the time of birth.
They found that nearly 50 percent of the teens had abnormal cervical cells.
Lead author Susan Brogly of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston said:
We have already seen this in HIV-infected women. However – in the adolescent girls, we didn’t expect to see as high rates as we did.
The researchers also found that only half of the girls who were sexually active had got their Pap tests done.
Joseph Harwell, M.D., an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Brown University, said that the results are troubling.
The study appears in the June 2007 issue of American Journal of Public Health.
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