The role of A/G polymorphism at nucleotide -1082 in the interleukin-10 (IL-10) promoter was assessed by following the disease course of 253 patients who had had a routine diagnostic Hybrid Capture human papillomavirus (HPV) test because of cytologic or colposcopic abnormalities of the uterine cervix. At baseline, 97 (78%) of the 125 high-risk HPV-positive and 83 (65%) of the 128 HPV-negative patients had equivocal cytologic atypia classified as P3 by the Papanicolaou classification, and the rest of the patients had mild colposcopic atypia with cytologic results of no oncogenic significance. In the high-risk HPV-infected patients, the frequency distribution of the nt -1082 genotypes (A/A: 28%; A/G: 52%; G/G: 20%) did not differ significantly from that in the controls (A/A: 25%; A/G: 51%; G/G: 24%; p = 0.70). On the other hand, the nt -1082 G allele tended to decrease susceptibility to equivocal cytologic atypia unrelated to HPV infection (A/G: OR = 0.56 [95% CI: 0.31-1.02], G/G: OR = 0.27 [95% CI: 0.11-0.63], p for trend = 0.05). With respect to the development of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), the established risk factors, such as high-risk HPV infection (RR = 104.6, 95% CI: 14.2-769.9) and cytologic atypia (RR = 9.6, 95% CI: 2.34-39.7) but not the various nt -1082 genotypes (A/A: reference; A/G: RR = 1.11 [95% CI: 0.59-2.08]; G/G: RR = 0.62 [95% CI: 0.25-1.50]) were found to increase the risk for high-grade CIN. In conclusion, the nt -1082 polymorphism had no influence on the early phase of cervical carcinogenesis but may determine different susceptibilities to cervical abnormalities unrelated to HPV infection.