IRMs act by stimulating the patient's own immune system to fight the virus and therefore resolve the warts. Adolescents with sexually transmitted diseases such as genital warts typically have very poor compliance rates with office-based treatments, so a therapy like Aldara, which patients can use in the privacy of their home, can potentially have an enormous impact. As many as 24 million Americans have been exposed to HPV, making it the fastest spreading sexually transmitted viral disease. HPV is associated with cervical cancer in women.
Young people are particularly vulnerable to STDs.
In fact, three million teenagers are infected with a sexually transmitted disease each year. Many people with HPV will not have any outward symptoms and they can harbor the virus for years, unknowingly infecting other sexual partners. Prior to the availability of the immune response modifier Aldara, traditional treatments for genital warts were typically performed in the physician's office and involved surgical, laser, or chemical removal that is often associated with pain, tissue destruction, and scarring. HPV or genital warts can be extremely embarrassing for a young person, and adolescents often fail to complete treatment regimens or seek treatment at all. Patients applied Aldara every three days with intervals increasing to five to six days based on symptoms, and were monitored at four-week intervals.