Pathogenesis of Cancer of the Cervix

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 al-most these 30 years to accept EBV as a genuine tumor virus, causing at least a proportion of B-cell lymphomas in immunosuppressed in ividuals (for review, see zur Hausen 1991a). Its role in those malignancies in which EBVgenomes had been initially identified (zur Hausen et al. 1970) is even today not fully understood. During the past 15 years, three new virus groups hav