Transmission of warts on fingers

[Biff34]

I have two concerns related to warts on fingers:

(1)Is there a risk of transmitting them to a female's genitals during sexual contact?

(2)If someone had genital warts at one point and they did not come back--you usually say that they have cleared after 6 mos. or a year.  What if the person has some hand warts.  Would that mean that the virus had not cleared?  Or, would the clearing process only require that the warts on the genitals had not recurred.  

Thanks.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

I am no expert on non-genital warts, but to my knowledge all warts contain HPV, generally in large amounts (i.e., easily transmitted).

HHH, MD

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Unrelated.  To my knowledge, the time course for resultion of hand warts does not predict whether genital warts will last longer than average; or vice versa.

HHH, MD

[Biff34]

Thanks Doc,

What I meant with the second question was, would the presence of hand warts mean that genital warts had not cleared or would those two things be unrelated?

[Englishman]

Is it always the case that a wart contains the HPV virus? Since it induces replication of skin cells could the virus not dissappear (by immune response) and leave the multiplied skin cells (i.e. the wart) behind (so that it is no longer infectious). I guess the analogy could be : just because you see a wasp nest it doesn't always contain wasps. Could this be true of warts?

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

The HPV types that cause common hand warts (mostly HPV-1) do not commonly cause genital infection.  Likewise, the genital types rarely are transmitted to the hands.  To be extra cautious, someone with warts of the hands or fingers ought to avoid touching  a partner's genitals--but if there is a slip-up, most likely the infection would not be transmitted.

I'm not an expert on the natural history of common hand warts, or virus clearance from them.  But if the wart is still present, you can be sure the virus is there as well.  However, your family doctor or a dermatologist is a better source of such information than I am.

Read the article on HPV and warts in the link "STD Quick Facts and Articles" on this forum's home page.

Good luck--  HHH, MD