EFFICACY OF CO2-LASER SURGERY IN TREATING SQUAMOUS INTRAEPITHELIAL LESIONS - AN ANALYSIS OF CLINICAL AND VIROLOGICAL RESULTS

This paper reports the clinical and virologic results of CO2 laser tre atment for squamous intraepithelial lesions in 154 patients. On the ba sis of cervical canal involvement, vaporization or conization was perf ormed. Failure rates following the first and second treatments were 4. 5% and 0%, respectively. However, human papillomavirus persistence in several women with completely normal follow-up suggests that one of th e possible mechanisms of failure could be reexposure of the healing ar ea to a viral reservoir within the ''normal'' epithelium.