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Health services research
Genital warts and cost of care in England
  1. Sarika Desai,
  2. Sally Wetten,
  3. Sarah C Woodhall,
  4. Lindsey Peters,
  5. Gwenda Hughes,
  6. Kate Soldan
  1. Health Protection Agency, HIV and STI Department, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Kate Soldan, Health Protection Agency, 61 Colindale Avenue, London NW9 5EQ, UK; kate.soldan{at}hpa.org.uk

Abstract

Objectives To estimate the total number of cases of, and cost of care for, genital warts (GWs) in England, to inform economic evaluations of human papillomavirus vaccination.

Methods The number of GW cases seen in general practices (GPs) and in genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics was estimated using the General Practice Research Database and the GUM Clinic Activity Dataset. The overlap in care of cases in the two settings was estimated. The calculated costs of care in GP and hospitals were added to the costs of care in GUM clinics (estimated elsewhere) to estimate the cost of care for GWs in England.

Results In England, in 2008, GP and GUM saw 80 531 new (157/100 000 population) and 68 259 recurrent (133/100 000 population) episodes, giving a total of 148 790 episodes of care of GWs (289/100 000 population). Seventy-three per cent of cases were seen only in GUM clinics, 22% were seen by a GP before being referred to GUM, and 5% by GPs only. Hospital care was given in 1.3% of cases and contributed 8% of the costs. The average cost of care per episode was £113, and the estimated annual cost of care in England was £16.8 million.

Conclusions This study provides a fairly comprehensive measure of GW frequency and care in England. GWs exert a considerable impact on health services, a large proportion of which could be prevented through immunisation using the quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine.

  • Incidence
  • cost
  • England
  • genital warts
  • anogenital
  • condyloma

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.

https://doi.org/10.1136/sti.2010.048421

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    Footnotes

    • Funding Department of Health, Wellington House 135–155 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8UG, UK.

    • Competing interests The authors' institution has received money from the Department of Health for STI and HPV surveillance. SW was a GSK employee and has stocks in the company.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.