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. 2025 Aug 14;232(2):e213-e222.
doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiaf213.

Human Papillomavirus Persistence, Recurrence, and Incidence in Early Childhood

Eméra Alice Bénard  1   2 , Ana Maria Carceller  2   3 , Marie-Hélène Mayrand  4   5 , Jacques Lacroix  3 , Joseph Niyibizi  1   2 , Louise Laporte  2 , François Audibert  5   6 , François Coutlée  4   7   8   9 , Helen Trottier  1   2 ; HERITAGE Study Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

Human Papillomavirus Persistence, Recurrence, and Incidence in Early Childhood

Eméra Alice Bénard et al. J Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Background: Little is known on the vertical transmission of human papillomavirus (HPV) and on the dynamics of HPV among children. Our objective was to determine the risk of HPV recurrence, persistence, and incidence over 2 years of age among children born to HPV-positive mothers.

Methods: We conducted the HERITAGE study among pregnant women recruited between 2010 and 2016 in Canada. HPV DNA testing was done on vaginal samples collected during the first and third trimesters of pregnancy, and on conjunctival, oral, pharyngeal, and genital samples collected in children from birth and at every 3-6 months up to 2 years. We estimated the probability of HPV vertical transmission, and of HPV recurrence, persistence, and incidence among children during follow-up. Time to clear HPV among children was estimated using Kaplan-Meier technique.

Results: Among the 422 women with HPV during pregnancy, 390 carried pregnancy to term, and 395 children were born alive including twins/triplets. HPV vertical transmission was estimated at 7.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 5.0%-10.4%) with a genotype concordance of 85.2%. During the entire follow-up, we observed 91 HPV detections (among 51 children) including 2 recurrent and 1 persistent. Incident genotypes occurred in 26 of the 270 (9.6%) children with valid HPV testing during follow-up. Most HPV infections detected in children cleared with a mean time of 3.9 months (95% CI, 3.6-4.2 months).

Conclusions: HPV vertical transmission and incident HPV occasionally occur during infancy, but the risk of persistence or recurrence is overall very low.

Keywords: children; human papillomavirus (HPV); persistence; pregnancy; recurrence.

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Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflicts of interest . F. C. has received funds to evaluate novel HPV detection tests through his institution, the research center of the CHUM, and from Becton-Dickson and Roche Molecular Systems. H. T. has received occasional lecture fees from Merck and unrestricted grants from ViiV Healthcare. All other authors report no potential conflicts of interest. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed.

Figures

Graphical Abstract
Graphical Abstract
This graphical abstract is also available at Tidbit: https://tidbitapp.io/tidbits/hpv-persistence-and-incidence-in-early-childhood-2daa26b9-c42d-47f2-af90-ba5e3d1d2653
Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Clearance of genotype-specific human papillomavirus (HPV) episodes detected during follow-up. Data are based on the 90 genotype-specific HPV episodes (out of the 91 HPV detections, only 1 episode was persistent at the conjunctiva; the total number of episodes was therefore 90). Recurrent detections were all considered independently as unique infections that have cleared after a negative visit. Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; HPV, human papillomavirus; IQR, interquartile range.
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