New research might help explain why black women are so much more likely than whites to develop and die from cervical cancer: They seem to have more trouble clearing HPV, the virus that causes the disease

Black women are 40% more likely to develop cervical cancer and twice as likely to die from it. Blacks are 1.5 times more likely to test positive for infection with one of the HPV strains that raise cancer risk. African-American women don't clear the virus as fast. They hold onto it about six months longer, for 18 months versus 12 months for whites. Among research subjects, 10% of of blacks had abnormal Pap tests versus 6% of whites. Two years after initial infections were found, 56% of black women were still infected but only 24% of whites remained infected. Researchers have known that there are genetic differences between the races and it's possible that a gene from certain ancestries such as African might play a role in the ability to clear an HPV infection.