Re: GEN: as the pendulum swings
From: ainsron@sbcglobal.net
Thu Apr 11 17:01:22 2002
I also heard the author interviewed today on NPR today. Interestingly,
he is not really a proponent of circumcision and didn't do the study to
meet any personal agenda. In fact, he is not circumcised and his own
six year old son is not circumcised. He feels the information may make
many pediatricians re-evaluate how they feel about circumcision. On the
other hand, he wonders about the ethical issues and public issues
involved in recommending a procedure on a child that really has no major
health benefit for the child, but for the child's future partners. He
is also the lead investigator in the clinical trial that is studing HPV
vaccines.
>this in today's Reuters Health News. this seems apropos in view of
>recent comments re: circumcision.
>
>Circumcision reduces risk of penile HPV infection, cervical cancer in
>partners
>
>Last Updated: 2002-04-10 17:00:44 EDT (Reuters Health)
>
>NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Circumcised men are less likely to carry
>genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, a multinational team of
>investigators reports in the New England Journal of Medicine for April
>11.
>
>A result of this reduced carriage rate is that a monogamous woman whose
>male sexual partner has have a history of high-risk sexual behavior is
>less likely to develop cervical cancer if the partner is circumcised and
>than if he is not.
>
>In seven case-control studies conducted on three continents, men who
>were long-term partners of 610 monogamous women with cervical cancer and
>those of 533 matched control women were tested for penile HPV infection
>by PCR assay. Nearly 20% of the men were circumcised, ranging from 1.5%
>in Colombia to 91.0% in the Philippines.
>
>Dr. Xavier Castellsagué, of the Hospitalet de Llobregat in Barcelona,
>Spain, and associates report that HPV DNA was detected in 19.6% of the
>uncircumcised men and in 5.5% of those who were circumcised.
>
>"Male circumcision was associated with a moderate, but nonsignificant,
>decrease in the risk of cervical cancer in the men's female partners,"
>the investigators report. However, there was a significant inverse
>association between circumcision and the partner's risk of cervical
>cancer when the man had a history of six or more sexual partners (p 0.03).
>
>In an editorial, Dr. Hans-Olov Adami from the Karolinska Institutet in
>Stockholm and Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos from the Harvard School of
>Public Health in Boston estimate that, assuming 25% of men are already
>circumcised, "the general adoption of circumcision might lead to a
>further reduction in the incidence of cancer of the cervix of 23 to 43
>percent."
>
>In addition, the commentators point out, circumcision is associated with
>reduced risk of penile cancer and of HIV infection, lending the
>possibility of "considerable public health benefits" to increased rates
>of circumcision.
>
>N Engl J Med 2002;346:1105-1112.
>
>don't shoot me - am just the messenger.
>
>art
>
>--
>art fougner, md
>ich bin ein New Yorker
>
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