[Cervico-uterine cancer. Influence of cell and viral genes. Implications in the development of vaccines].

Human cancer is a major public health problem; in particular, uterine-cervix carcinoma is frequent in most latin American countries. Activated cellular oncogenes (myc and ras, for example) and inactivated anti-oncogenesis (p53 or Rb) participate in multistep carcinogenesis. In addition, some viruses are associated with human cancer. For example, high risk human papillomaviruses (HPV) are involved in uterine-cervix carcinomas. Typification of HPV is important for clinical diagnosis and prognosis of this disease. The understanding of the biochemistry and molecular genetics of tumor suppressor genes, cellular oncogenes and tumor viruses has opened up new possibilities for diagnosis, vaccination and therapy of uterine-cervix carcinoma.