Smoking linked to genital wart duration

In a study of 231 men being treated at the Perth STD Wart Clinic in Australia, men with visible warts were younger and nearly three times more likely to be current smokers than men without warts, reported Dr. Jenny McCloskey and colleagues at the clinic.

Regardless of the patient's age or alcohol use, patients who had warts that lingered for 6 months or longer were twice as likely to be smokers. Men who had warts for 31 months or longer were more than six times more likely to be smokers than nonsmokers. All of the men had histories of treatment difficulties or difficult to diagnose genital warts.

The study also found that 18% of men became sexually abstinent after acquiring a wart, and the abstinent period usually lasted for 10 months. For men whose warts had been present for 12 months or more, the average number of partners decreased from 7.9 during the year before diagnosis to 2.0 for the year after diagnosis. Condom use increased among men with warts from 29% prior to diagnosis to 73% after diagnosis.

The findings are "biologically plausible," McCloskey noted. Previous studied showed that in women, precancerous lesions of the cervix caused by the human papilloma virus -- the virus that causes genital warts -- can sometimes shrink if a woman quits smoking.

There is also evidence suggesting that the number of Langerhans' cells -- cells that fight infection -- on the cervix and possibly in other parts of the body may be reduced by smoking, she noted.

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