Evaluation of needling-induced autoinoculation in the management of genital warts

Abstract

Genital warts caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) are one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. Long latency, lesions' multiplicity, high recurrence rate, and the tendency to malignant transformation are essential challenges during management. Traditional treatment modalities are known to be lesion-directed while intralesional immunotherapy was introduced to act beyond individual lesions and to confront the previous challenges through injection of known antigens, such as measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, to stimulate the immune system against HPV. Needling-induced autoinoculation is also considred as an immunotherapeutic procedure that does not include the injection of antigens. We evaluated the efficacy of needling-induced autoinoculation in the management of genital warts.