Adjuvant treatment of recalcitrant genitoanal warts with systemic recombinant interferon-alpha-2c

Seventeen male patients with recalcitrant genitoanal warts, who had been unsuccessfully treated with classical destructive modalities for 16 months on average, were included in an open uncontrolled trial. The treatment regimen consisted of caustic and/or surgical measures as judged optimally suited in the individual cases, combined with an intermittent systemic low-dose adjuvant interferon-alpha-2c regimen (3 or 6 5-day-courses with intervals of 2 weeks) followed by a 1-year-observation period. At the end of interferon treatment, no patient had clinically visible warts but 10 still had subclinical acetic acid positive lesions. At the end of the 1-year-observation period, clearance of both warts and acetowhite lesions was observed in 4 patients (23.5%), whereas acetowhite lesions persisted in 4 others (23.5%). Recurrence of clinically visible lesions, always within the acetowhite areas, was observed in 9 (53%) patients. Interferon may thus have been effective in suppressing clinical recurrences of genitoanal warts, but its potency to eradicate subclinical papillomavirus infection was disappointing.