By Ronnie Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women with the potentially cancer-causing human papillomavirus, or HPV, may be putting their partners at risk if they share sex adult toys during intimate relations, a new study suggests.
Researchers gave 12 women two vibrators each and detected the virus immediately after self-use on at least one of the vibrators used by all nine participants who tested positive for HPV.
Lead author Dr. Teresa Anderson, from the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, said the small study is the first to examine whether vibrators could be transmitting the virus between sex partners.
"Sex toys used between partners within the same sexual encounter have the potential for transmitting HPV," Anderson told Reuters Health. "Cleaning the sex toy has the potential to decrease the amount of HPV DNA we can detect and so can potentially decrease the risk of transmission."
Genital HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. It is so pervasive that it has been called the common cold of the sexually active world.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women with the potentially cancer-causing human papillomavirus, or HPV, may be putting their partners at risk if they share sex adult toys during intimate relations, a new study suggests.
Researchers gave 12 women two vibrators each and detected the virus immediately after self-use on at least one of the vibrators used by all nine participants who tested positive for HPV.
Lead author Dr. Teresa Anderson, from the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, said the small study is the first to examine whether vibrators could be transmitting the virus between sex partners.
"Sex toys used between partners within the same sexual encounter have the potential for transmitting HPV," Anderson told Reuters Health. "Cleaning the sex toy has the potential to decrease the amount of HPV DNA we can detect and so can potentially decrease the risk of transmission."
Genital HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. It is so pervasive that it has been called the common cold of the sexually active world.