INITIAL EXPERIENCE WITH COMBINED INTERFERON-ALPHA-2B AND CARBON-DIOXIDE LASER FOR THE TREATMENT OF CONDYLOMATA ACUMINATA

The incidence of condylomata acuminata, a common sexually transmitted disease caused by certain types of human papillomaviruses, is increasing rapidly and treatment regimens presently are not consistently effective. One of the more popular and effective modes of treatment has been laser therapy. Because of the relatively high recurrence rate of condylomata acuminata with laser treatment alone and because laser treatment in some patients with confluent acetowhite lesions would render cosmetically unacceptable results if the entire area were treated, we believed that it was reasonable to use intralesional pretreatment. We present our preliminary data on 14 consecutive patients with the clinical diagnosis of condylomata acuminata who were treated with the combination of carbon dioxide laser and intralesional interferon-alpha-2B. We found the treatment regimen to be effective in decreasing the recurrence rate compared to laser treatment alone and it was well tolerated with only transient side effects in a minority of patients. We are encouraged by our results and have recently begun a randomized double-blind prospective study to provide more conclusive information regarding this treatment combination.