Genital warts

Are these the same HPV types that cause cancer?

Diagnosed with genital warts last month and I have gone down a very bad internet hole about HPV and cancer. Nobody at the appointment mentioned cancer at all, which I now can’t tell is reassuring or an oversight.

northwindow 3 months ago

NoteMember experience, not medical advice. Symptoms overlap between infections and only a test can tell them apart.

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paper_lantern 3 months ago

The types that typically cause visible warts are not the types associated with cancer. They’re grouped separately for exactly that reason, low risk and high risk.

It’s not an oversight that it wasn’t raised. It’s that in the context of warts it isn’t the relevant conversation. That said, ask directly at your next appointment. You’ll get a clearer answer in thirty seconds than in three hours of reading.

quietkettle 3 months ago

Do keep up with whatever routine screening applies to you, though. Not because of the warts, just because screening is what actually catches the thing people worry about, and worry is a poor substitute for an appointment.

low_tide 2 months ago

Worth adding, because it is the bit that trips people up: having wart causing types does not rule out also having a high risk type. They are separate types and you can carry more than one at once.

A wart diagnosis is not a statement about your high risk status in either direction, which is exactly why screening is a separate programme rather than something the wart appointment covers. It is not that anyone is being cagey, it is two different questions.

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