 Hello, I am Dr. Poonam Patil working as Medical Oncologist in Manipal Hospital here in Bangalore. Most of the times cervical cancer is due to a viral infection and this virus is human papilloma virus. This virus comes to women who are sexually active and in their lifetime most of the women would have got this viral infection sometime or the other. Most of the times again the virus is cleared out of the body but when this viral infection lingers on in the body, in the cervix and it is this chronic infection which may lead to pre-cancerous changes and ultimately lead to cancer in some women. So human papilloma virus is the top most cause of cervical cancer. Now this chronic infection that lingers in everybody it does not change into cancer. Sometimes this infection itself may get cleared and there are some co-factors identified which may promote development of cancer. So we have to also look at these co-factors which are indirectly promoting cancer. These co-factors most commonly seen are smoking, weakened immune system, obesity, diet poor in fruits and vegetables, multiple sexual partners. These are the most common causes or they are the most common co-factors.