The treatment of human papillomavirus lesions of the lower genital tract

Anogenital warts are caused by human papillomavirus types 6 and 11 infectio n, and are the most common clinical manifestation of lower genital tract hu man papillomavirus infection. They are the most frequently recognized sexua lly transmitted disease in the developed world, occurring at an incidence r ate of 0.5-1.2% in young men and women aged 18-25 years. Many therapies for genital warts have been described, none being ideal in that all therapeuti c modalities fail to clear the warts in a proportion of patients, and the r ecurrence of warts after successful treatment is seen with all treatments. The current knowledge base of the therapy of genital warts is flawed by a l ack of good natural history data either with treatment or without treatment over longer periods of time, in that most trials report comparisons of mon otherapies over a short time and there is a lack of structured trials addre ssing consecutive therapies over longer durations, as occurs in real-life c linical situations.