Considering the association between HPV infection and cervical carcinogenesis, we have determined the presence of HPV DNA in cervical samples from women residents of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and submitted to colposcopy at the University Hospital Pedro Ernesto - HUPE/UERJ, for having previous and/or current history of pre-malignant and malignant lesions of the uterine cervix. For this, the DNA extracted from cervical samples of all volunteers was used as a template in PCR-based assays employing two pairs of primers, MY09/11 and GP5+/6+, designed to amplify regions within the HPV L1 gene. The amplicons were then confirmed by 6% polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by ethidium bromide staining. Our population was composed of 161 patients (36.2 ± 13.4 years), with 67.1% aging from 20 to 44 years old. The HPV prevalence using the primers sets MY09/11 and GP5+/6+ were 31.7% (51/161) and 29.8% (48/161), respectively. As the two primers sets were considered together the value corresponded to 39.8% (64/161). The HPV prevalence decreased with age, from 45.7% (16/35) in the group of women under 25 years old to 31.0% (9/29) in patients with more than 50 years of age. Analysis of the presence of HPV DNA according to cyto and/or histopatological findings revealed that patients carrying HPV DNA presented more risk of having abnormal cytological and/or histological results than the HPV negative patients (RR 2.820; 95% CI 1.828-4.348; p<0.0001). Among the 12 HPV positive patients with normal cytological and/or histological results, four presented condyloma at the time of colposcopy, and eight had had previous abnormal results (LSIL or HSIL). The HPV positive samples are being typed in order to evaluate possible association between viral type, cervical lesion severity and disease progression.