“…To date, most research efforts have focused on the association of HLA, specifically, certain class II alleles, with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (David et al, 1992;Vandenvelde et al, 1993;Apple et al, 1995;Odunsi et al, 1995Odunsi et al, , 1996Bontkes et al, 1998;Hildesheim et al, 1998;Krul et al, 1999b;Beskow et al, 2001;Wang et al, 2001) and cancer risk (Wank and Thomssen, 1991;Apple et al, 1994;Gregoire et al, 1994;Allen et al, 1996;SastreGarau et al, 1996;Cuzick et al, 2000;Neuman et al, 2000). However, with few exceptions, strong population-independent associations with specific HLA types have been elusive because of a linkage disequilibrium observed in the HLA gene cluster and the probable presence of several polymorphic immune-related genes inside and outside the HLA region that could influence the outcome of the viral infectious processes (Gostout et al, 2003).…”