WEDNESDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- Newly sexually active young women whose male partners consistently use condoms during sex are at less risk of cervical and vulvovaginal infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), according to a study published in the June 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Rachel L. Winer, Ph.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues conducted a study of 82 female university students who were newly sexually active with male partners, taking cervical and vulvovaginal samples for HPV DNA and Papanicolaou testing at gynecological examinations every four months. The participants also recorded their daily sexual behavior in an electronic diary that was completed every two weeks.
Women whose partners consistently used condoms had an incidence of genital HPV infection of 37.8 per 100 patient-years at risk, versus 89.3 per 100 patient-years at risk for those whose partners used condoms less than 5 percent of the time. No cervical squamous intraepithelial lesions were detected in 32 patient-years at risk among those who reported 100 percent condom use, but there were 14 incidences of such lesions during 97 patient-years at risk among the women whose partners used condoms less frequently or not at all.
"Given that HPV is transmissible through non-penetrative sexual contact with both male and female partners, and that imperfect condom use does occur, it is not surprising that some infections were still detected among women reporting consistent use," the authors write.
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