Published 2 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4514
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4514

Letters

HPV vaccination

What about male specific HPV related diseases?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The paper by Kim and Goldie and the editorial by Castle and Scarinci on the cost effectiveness of routinely vaccinating preadolescent boys against human papillomavirus (HPV) ignored some important aspects.^{1 2} Firstly, by vaccinating girls only, males remain carriers and can transmit the virus to non-vaccinated women and men.

Secondly, the percentage of HPV related diseases is high in some groups of males—for example, oropharyngeal cancer, conjunctival squamous cancer, genital warts, and anal and penile cancers in homosexual, bisexual, and HIV positive subjects.

Thirdly, we recently documented the presence of HPV in ejaculated sperm and its association with reduced sperm motility and male infertility.³ Such cases of reduced sperm motility (asthenozoospermia) are considered idiopathic and are often treated with assisted reproduction techniques. These procedures are expensive and have important psychological effects. Lastly, we recently found HPV in six of 100 cryopreserved semen samples from men with testicular cancer or infertility. Obviously, . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ University of Padova, Department of Histology, Microbiology and Medical Biotechnologies, Section of Clinical Pathology and Centre for Male Gamete Cryopreservation, 35121 Padova, Italy

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Relevant Articles

Cost effectiveness analysis of including boys in a human papillomavirus vaccination programme in the United States

Jane J Kim and Sue J Goldie
BMJ 2009 339: b3884. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Should HPV vaccine be given to men?

Philip E Castle and Isabel Scarinci
BMJ 2009 339: b4127. [Extract] [Full Text]

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