Reactive non-sexually related acute genital ulcers associated with COVID-19.

Acute genital ulcers (AGU), known as Lipschütz ulcers, are painful vulvar ulcers typically affecting non-sexually active girls and women. AGU have been associated with viral infections, namely, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Here, we describe a case of AGU in the setting of SARS-CoV-2 in a non-sexually active adolescent girl hospitalised for pain control and urinary retention, who failed a course of oral corticosteroids and then improved with colchicine. Testing for herpes simplex virus, EBV and Behcet's syndrome were all negative. Testing for SARS-CoV-2 was positive. COVID-19 increases cytokines such as tumour necrosis factor alpha, which has been shown to affect endothelial cell adhesion and neutrophil chemotaxis, leading to aphthosis.

Designing low-cost, accurate cervical screening strategies that take into account COVID-19: a role for self-sampled HPV typing2.

BACKGROUND: We propose an economical cervical screening research and implementation strategy designed to take into account the typically slow natural history of cervical cancer and the severe but hopefully temporary impact of COVID-19. The commentary introduces the practical validation of some critical components of the strategy, described in three manuscripts detailing recent project results in Asia and Africa.The main phases of a cervical screening program are 1) primary screening of women in the general population, 2) triage testing of the small minority of women that screen positive to determine need for treatment, and 3) treatment of triage-positive women thought to be at highest risk of precancer or even cancer. In each phase, attention must now be paid to safety in relation to SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The new imperatives of the COVID-19 pandemic support self-sampled HPV testing as the primary cervical screening method. Most women can be reassured for several years by a negative test performed on a self-sample collected at home, without need of clinic visit and speculum examination. The advent of relatively inexpensive, rapid and accurate HPV DNA testing makes it possible to return screening results from self-sampling very soon after specimen collection, minimizing loss to follow-up. Partial HPV typing provides important risk stratification useful for triage of HPV-positive women. A second "triage" test is often useful to guide management. In lower-resource settings, visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) is still proposed but it is inaccurate and poorly reproducible, misclassifying the risk stratification gained by primary HPV testing. A deep-learning based approach to recognizing cervical precancer, adaptable to a smartphone camera, is being validated to improve VIA performance. The advent and approval of thermal ablation permits quick, affordable and safe, immediate treatment at the triage clinic of the majority of HPV-positive, triage-positive women. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, only a small percentage of women in cervical screening programs need to attend the hospital clinic for a surgical procedure, particularly when screening is targeted to the optimal age range for detection of precancer rather than older ages with decreased visual screening performance and higher risks of hard-to-treat outcomes including invasive cancer.