Homosexuality Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Homosexuality, including details on causes, biology, signs, statistics, trends.

Risk factors for genital and anal warts in a prospective cohort of HIV-negative homosexual men: the HIM study.

Jin F, Prestage GP, Kippax SC, Pell CM, Donovan B, Templeton DJ, Kaldor JM, Grulich AE

National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, University of New South Wales, Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia. jjin@nchecr.unsw.edu.au

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence, incidence, and risk factors for genital and anal warts in HIV-negative homosexual men in Sydney. STUDY DESIGN: The authors conducted a prospective cohort study. Participants were asked whether they had had genital and anal warts at each interview. Details of lifetime sexual contacts and sexual behaviors in the last 6 months were collected. RESULTS: Among 1,427 men recruited, 8.9% and 19.6% reported a history of genital and anal warts at baseline, respectively. Incidence rates for genital and anal warts were 0.94 and 1.92 per 100 person-years, respectively. In multivariate analysis, both incident genital and anal warts were associated with younger age. In addition, incident genital warts was associated with insertive fingering (P trend = 0.018), whereas incident anal warts was associated with insertive fingering (P trend = 0.007) and insertive fisting (P trend = 0.039). CONCLUSIONS: Anal warts were twice as common as genital warts. Fingering and other manual sexual practices may be an important transmission route for both.

Published 25 June 2007 in Sex Transm Dis, 34(7): 488-93.
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