a couple of HPV questions - Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Message Board

virginia2004 · 08-21-2004, 10:23 PM

Just a little background...I'm a 25 year old female and about a year ago, my boyfriend found a few genital warts on his penis. Even confirmed w/his dermatologist. I've never had warts before but decided to go to my gyno. Found out that I have both low risk and high risk strains but that my pap smear wasn't abnormal. Anyway, I'll have to go in for my pap every 6 months now to be on the safe side. My questions are-

1) Does this mean that they performed a DNA test on me?

2) My boyfriend has constant outbreaks (getting them frozen off every time). Do the outbreaks along with my high risk strain mean that he could one day get penile cancer?

Worried...

luv4adonai · 08-21-2004, 11:05 PM

i don't know about your second question, but i can answer your first.

no, they didn't do a dna test on you. hpv is a virus that lives in your skin cells, not blood. in a pap smear, they take sample skin cells and that's how they determine if you have it or not. if your boyfriend did not get any break outs, he most likely would never know he had hpv because there is no test that can be done on a male in order to determine if he has genital warts or not (no dna tests due to the reason i stated above, and there are no pap smear-like tests for men).

virginia2004 · 08-22-2004, 07:01 AM

Thanks! But if they found out that I have HPV through a PAP Smear, that means that my cells appeared 'abnormal'? Could my cells have appeared abnormal (showing I had HPV) BUT with no warts on my cervix? They never told me that I needed a biopopsy or anything? I'm confused.

reni · 08-22-2004, 01:47 PM

The new way to do Pap smears is to combine them with a high-risk DNA test for HPV. Ask your doctor if you had this; I suspect you did.

You are infected with the strain of HPV that causes warts and the kind that causes cervical dysplasia (a type of precancer). Your boyfriend has both kinds too. And yes, he does have a higher risk of penile cancer, and you have a higher risk of cervical cancer. You don't need a biopsy or any treatment as long as your cells remain normal.

Hope this helps

beezkneez · 08-27-2004, 02:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reni

The new way to do Pap smears is to combine them with a high-risk DNA test for HPV. Ask your doctor if you had this; I suspect you did.

You are infected with the strain of HPV that causes warts and the kind that causes cervical dysplasia (a type of precancer). Your boyfriend has both kinds too. And yes, he does have a higher risk of penile cancer, and you have a higher risk of cervical cancer. You don't need a biopsy or any treatment as long as your cells remain normal.

Hope this helps

Just wanted to add a little more to this post. Don't want to scare you

The risk for a man carring hpv to develope penile cancer is 1%. If you keep up your regular pap tests then you should not worry about cervical cancer. If abnormal cells are found, all Hpv tests now are dna tested. As long as you have your pap tests and the warts removed then you will be fine. As you both have both strands of HPV then you can not pass this back and forth or make it worse for either of you. Just keep it under control and all will be ok. When the virus suppresses itself in both of your bodies then neither of you will have to worry about it anymore unless you have another outbreak. Does that help? Any more question just ask.