Genital Warts Health Video

Video Transcript

DR. LORETA CIRALDO: Hi, I'm Dr. Loreta Ciraldo, a voluntary professor of dermatology at the University of Miami School of Medicine and author of "6 Weeks to Sensational Skin." Genital warts are a problem that is increasing in frequency. And basically, by a genital wart, we mean a wart that's somewhere in the genital area. They're not always cause by sexual activity, because the wart virus is a minute microscopic virus that, for instance, someone might have it on their hand and then transmit themselves, which we call autotransmission from the hand to the genital area. But the very important message about genital warts is that if you should have a new lesion, a new spot or growth in the genital area and it does not go away after two weeks, please bring it to your doctor's attention. Unfortunately, genital warts, which are cause by a virus that's called HPV have been associated with a slightly increased risk of getting cancer in that area. This does not mean that you will immediately go from having a wart to having genital cancer. But we feel that it's a very important public health issue that if you have a lesion in the genital area, it needs to be diagnosed, it needs to be treated and eradicated. You got to rid this from your body for a couple of reasons; first, because you don't want to go from having one wart to many as can happen because the wart virus tends to spread. You don't want to be spreading any problem to a sexual partner; and last but certainly not least, you don't want to be at any increased risk for cancer in the genital area if you don't treat a wart in that area.