Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Reuters (12.18.08) - Friday, December 19, 2008
Maggie Fox
In a study involving more than 1,200 men ages 18-24 in Orange Farm, South Africa, just 14.8 percent of those circumcised had HPV, compared with 22.3 percent of men who were uncircumcised. "This finding explains why women with circumcised partners are at a lower risk of cervical cancer and genital warts," concluded Dr. Bertran Auvert of the University of Versailles, France, and colleagues. HPV is the cause of most cervical cancer cases as well as genital warts.
A second study of 463 US men had more mixed results, but it did find some indication that male circumcision could protect against HPV infection of the urethra, glans/corona, and penile shaft. Circumcised men were about half as likely to have HPV as uncircumcised men, after adjusting for other differences between the groups, according to Carrie Nielson of Oregon Health & Science University and colleagues.
In the third report, researchers found that among heterosexual African-American men in Baltimore at high risk for HIV, 10 percent of the circumcised men were HIV-infected, compared with 22 percent of men who were not circumcised.
"Circumcision was associated with substantially reduced HIV risk in patients with known HIV exposure, suggesting that results of other studies demonstrating reduced HIV risk for circumcision among heterosexual men likely can be generalized to the US context," concluded Lee Warner of CDC and colleagues.
"In the United States, circumcision is less common among African-American and Hispanic men, who are also the subgroups most at risk of HIV," noted an accompanying editorial. "Thus circumcision may afford an additional means of protection from HIV in these at-risk minorities." However, because the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend routine circumcision of newborns, Medicaid does not cover the procedure's cost. The editorial states that "this is particularly disadvantageous for poorer African American and Hispanic boys who, as adults, may face high HIV risk exposure."
The studies, "Effect of Male Circumcision on Prevalence of High-Risk Human Papillomavirus in Young Men: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial Conducted in Orange Farm, South Africa," "Associations Between Male Anogenital Human Papillomavirus Infection and Circumcision by Anatomic Site Sampled and Lifetime Number of Female Sex Partners," "Male Circumcision and Risk of HIV Infection Among Heterosexual African American Men Attending Baltimore Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinics," and the editorial, "The Role of Male Circumcision in the Prevention of Human Papillomavirus and HIV Infection," were published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases (2009;199:14-9, 7-13, 59-65 and 1-3, respectively).
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