Who Faces Highest Risk of HPV Infection?

• Position: SEXUAL ACTIVITY

Previous sexually transmitted infections and more sexual partners predict new human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in men who have sex with men, other cisgender sexual minority men, and transgender women, according to a Rutgers University study.

"Neither of those findings is unexpected, but they're both important," says Caleb LoSchiavo, lead author of the study published in the American Journal of Men's Health and a doctoral research assistant at the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies.

Anal HPV infections cause about 90% of all anal cancers, and high infection levels among these groups lead to elevated cancer rates. We are just now doing the work to analyze what's actually happening so we can design effective intervention strategies.

Previous studies have noted high rates of HPV infection among sexual minority men and transgender women, but the new study followed 137 of them--all young residents of New York--for up to five years to see which factors predicted new infections with those strains of HPV that create a high risk of anal cancer (hrHPV).

All patients underwent testing on three occasions: when they entered the study, roughly two years later, and about two years after the first follow-up visit. At the initial visit, 31.6% of patients tested positive...