The consistent use of condoms protects against human papillomavirus, a cause of warts and cervical and other female cancers, researchers are reporting today.
In the study, which independent experts said was the most conclusive to examine the role of condoms in preventing infection with the virus, women whose male partners used condoms every time they had sexual intercourse had less than half the rate of infection as did women whose partners used condoms less than 5 percent of the time.
The study was conducted among students at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Although the Food and Drug Administration recently licensed a human papillomavirus vaccine that is widely expected to prevent many warts and female cancers, the findings of the study are important because the vaccination protects against just four strains of human papillomavirus.
So, the authors said, consistent condom use may protect women against other dangerous strains of the virus.
Experts on infectious diseases say they believe that condoms, when properly used, are effective in preventing papillomavirus and virtually all other sexually transmitted infections.
The issue has been controversial because a number of earlier studies of condoms and human papillomavirus produced conflicting findings about the degree of protection that condoms offered women.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a federal agency, paid $685,000 for the study, carried out from December 2000 to June 2005.
In the study, the researchers followed 82 female students at the University of Washington ages 18 through 22 from the time they said they had their first sexual intercourse with a male partner.
Every two weeks, the women electronically filed information about their daily sexual behavior and condom use to a protected Web site. Every four months, the researchers tested the women for papillomavirus and early indications of cancer. A researcher also conducted a personal interview.
The study “provided a very clear answer” to the question of the protective benefits of condoms and papillomavirus infection, said Dr. James R. Allen, president of the American Social Health Association, an organization in Research Triangle Park, N.C., dedicated to the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. Allen said he was not involved in the study.
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