Persistence of concurrent infections with multiple human papillomavirus types: a population-based cohort study.

The presence of more than one human papillomavirus (HPV) genotype may influence the duration of prevalently detected infections. This analysis included 1,646 infections detected at enrollment in 980 women from the Guanacaste, Costa Rica, cohort who were actively followed up every 6-12 months for up to 8 years. We categorized HPV infections as single or multiple types. Persistence of infections was estimated using discrete-time survival analysis. The difference between the duration of single and that of concurrent multiple type-specific prevalent HPV infections was not significant (P = .9; log-rank test). Concurrent, prevalent detection of additional HPV types did not change the likelihood of viral persistence.