Can enhanced screening of men with a history of prior syphilis infection stem the epidemic in men who have sex with men? A mathematical modelling study.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to determine the transmission impact of using prior syphilis infection to guide a focused syphilis screening intervention among men who have sex with men (MSM). METHODS: We parameterised a deterministic model of syphilis transmission in MSM to reflect the 2011-2015 syphilis outbreak in Winnipeg, Canada. Enhanced screening of 75% of men with prior syphilis every 3 months (A) was compared with distributing equivalent number tests to all MSM (B) or those with the highest partner number (C). We compared early syphilis incidence, diagnoses and prevalence after 10 years, relative to a base case of 30% of MSM screened annually. RESULTS: Strategy A was expected to avert 52% of incident infections, 44% of diagnosed cases and reduce early syphilis prevalence by 89%. Strategy B had the least impact. Strategy C was most effective, averting 59% of incident cases. When screening frequency was semiannual or annual, strategy A was the most effective. CONCLUSIONS: Enhanced screening of MSM with prior syphilis may efficiently reduce transmission, especially when identification of high-risk men via self-reported partner numbers or high-frequency screening is difficult to achieve.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
MSM screening coverage needed for eliminating syphilis among a population is substantially reduced from 62% with annual screening to 23% with quarterly screening.
“Furthermore, MSM screening coverage needed for eliminating syphilis among a population is substantially reduced from 62% with annual screening to 23% with quarterly screening (226,227).”
From Sexually Transmitted Infections Treatment Guidelines, 2021 (2021) · cites this paper as [227]
Cites
Weinhardt, L. S., Forsyth, A. D., Carey, M. P., Jaworski, B. C., & Durant, L. E. (1998) · Archives of Sexual Behavior · doi:10.1023/a:1018682530519 · Cited by 390 · see citing works
INOCULATION SYPHILIS IN HUMAN VOLUNTEERS
MAGNUSON, H. J., THOMAS, E. W., OLANSKY, S., KAPLAN, B. I., MELLO, L. D., & CUTLER, J. C. (1956) · Medicine · doi:10.1097/00005792-195602000-00002 · Cited by 273 · see citing works
Seña, A. C., White, B. L., & Sparling, P. F. (2010) · Clinical Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1086/655832 · Cited by 272 · see citing works
The Natural History of Syphilis
Garnett, G. P., Aral, S. O., Hoyle, D. V., Cates, W., & Anderson, R. M. (1997) · Sexually Transmitted Diseases · doi:10.1097/00007435-199704000-00002 · Cited by 222 · see citing works
Determining Transition Probabilities
Miller, D. K., & Homan, S. M. (1994) · Medical Decision Making · doi:10.1177/0272989x9401400107 · Cited by 197 · see citing works
Bissessor, M., Fairley, C. K., Leslie, D. E., Howley, K., & Chen, M. Y. (2010) · JAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes · doi:10.1097/qai.0b013e3181e583bf · Cited by 91 · see citing works
Cohen, S. E., Chew Ng, R. A., Katz, K. A., Bernstein, K. T., Samuel, M. C., Kerndt, P. R., & Bolan, G. (2012) · American Journal of Public Health · doi:10.2105/ajph.2011.300383 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
Increasing detection of asymptomatic syphilis in HIV patients
Cohen, C. E. (2005) · Sexually Transmitted Infections · doi:10.1136/sti.2004.012187 · Cited by 83 · see citing works
Targeted mass treatment for syphilis with oral azithromycin
Rekart, M. L., Patrick, D. M., Chakraborty, B., Maginley, J., Jones, H. D., Bajdik, C. D., Pourbohloul, B., & Brunham, R. C. (2003) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(03)12335-5 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
Screen more or screen more often? Using mathematical models to inform syphilis control strategies.
Tuite, A. R., Fisman, D. N., & Mishra, S. (2013) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-606 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
Self-citationFisman, D. N., Tang, P., Hauck, T. S., Richardson, S. E., Drews, S. J., Low, D. E., & Jamieson, F. (2011) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-694 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Self-citationBrotman, R. M., Melendez, J. H., Smith, T., et al. (2009) · Sexually Transmitted Diseases · doi:10.1097/olq.0b013e3181b5f15d · Cited by 64 · see citing works
Risk Factors for Repeat Syphilis in Men Who Have Sex With Men, San Francisco
Phipps, W. T., Kent, C. K., Kohn, R., & Klausner, J. D. (2009) · Sexually Transmitted Diseases · doi:10.1097/olq.0b013e3181990c85 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Zou, H., Fairley, C. K., Guy, R., et al. (2012) · Sexually Transmitted Diseases · doi:10.1097/olq.0b013e318248e3ff · Cited by 54 · see citing works
Reinfections During the Florida Syphilis Epidemic, 2000–2008
Brewer, T. H., Peterman, T. A., Newman, D. R., & Schmitt, K. (2010) · Sexually Transmitted Diseases · doi:10.1097/olq.0b013e3181e9afc7 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Ng, B., Moore, D. M., Michelow, W., Hogg, R. S., Gustafson, R., Robert, W., Kanters, S., Thumath, M., McGuire, M., & Gilbert, M. (2014) · Canadian Journal of Public Health · doi:10.17269/cjph.105.4212 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
Coleman, T. A., Bauer, G. R., Pugh, D., Aykroyd, G., Powell, L., & Newman, R. (2016) · LGBT Health · doi:10.1089/lgbt.2016.0004 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
Tuite, A. R., Burchell, A. N., & Fisman, D. N. (2014) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0101240 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Self-citationA Population‐Based Study of Infectious Syphilis Rediagnosis in British Columbia, 1995–2005
Ogilvie, G. S., Taylor, D., Moniruzzaman, A., Knowles, L., Jones, H., Kim, P. H., & Rekart, M. L. (2009) · Clinical Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1086/598997 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Conway, J. M., Tuite, A. R., Fisman, D. N., Hupert, N., Meza, R., Davoudi, B., English, K. M., den Driessche, P. V., Brauer, F., Ma, J., et al. (2011) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-932 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Self-citationPatterns of syphilis testing in a large cohort of HIV patients in Ontario, Canada, 2000–2009
Burchell, A. N., Allen, V. G., Moravan, V., Gardner, S. L., Raboud, J., Tan, D. H. S., Bayoumi, A. M., Kaul, R., Mazzulli, T., McGee, F., et al. (2013) · BMC Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1186/1471-2334-13-246 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Repeat Syphilis Among Men Who Have Sex With Men—San Diego County, 2004–2009
Katz, K. A., Lee, M. A., Gray, T., Marcus, J. L., & Pierce, E. F. (2010) · Sexually Transmitted Diseases · doi:10.1097/olq.0b013e3181fe650b · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Go big or go home: impact of screening coverage on syphilis infection dynamics.
Tuite, A., & Fisman, D. (2016) · Sexually Transmitted Infections · doi:10.1136/sextrans-2014-052001 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Self-citationChaulk, P., Muvva, R., Morgan, J., Pearl, M. L., Matus, S., Blythe, D., Flynn, C. P., Oster, A. M., Paz‐Bailey, G., Burnett, P., et al. (2013) · PubMed Central · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Self-citationInfectious syphilis in women: what’s old is new again?
Shaw, S. Y., Ross, C., Novicki, D. L., Marshall, S. G., Stephen, S., Davies, C., Riddell, J., Bailey, K., Elliott, L. J., Reimer, J., et al. (2016) · International Journal of STD & AIDS · doi:10.1177/0956462415627397 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Self-citationTrubiano, J. A., & Hoy, J. (2014) · Sexual Health · doi:10.1071/sh14164 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Sexually Transmitted Infections Treatment Guidelines, 2021
Workowski, K. A., Bachmann, L. H., Chan, P. A., Johnston, C. M., Muzny, C. A., Park, I., Reno, H., Zenilman, J. M., & Bolan, G. A. (2021) · MMWR. Recommendations and Reports · doi:10.15585/mmwr.rr7004a1 · Cited by 2,759 · see citing works
- Authors
- Tuite, A. R., Shaw, S., Reimer, J. N., Ross, C. P., Fisman, D. N., & Mishra, S.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (CA)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Mishra, Sharmistha
- Venue
- Sexually Transmitted Infections
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2017-07-13
- Volume
- 94
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 105-110
- ISSN
- 0007-134X (ISSN-L)
- 1368-4973
- 1472-3263
- OpenAlex
- W2735523205
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 1.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Sexually Transmitted Infections (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (136630_1, 143266_1)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Syphilis Diagnosis and Treatment
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Mathematical and Theoretical Epidemiology and Ecology Models
- Social Sciences › General Social Sciences › HIV, TB, and STIs Epidemiology
- Keywords
- syphilis, men who have sex with men, syphilis screening, syphilis transmission, syphilis outbreak, Winnipeg, screening frequency, high-risk men, syphilis prevalence, HIV prevention
- MeSH terms
- Sexual and Gender Minorities, Adult, Canada, Humans, Male, Mass Screening, Models, Theoretical, Risk Factors, Sexual Behavior, Sexual Partners, Syphilis, HIV Infections, Incidence, Prevalence, Homosexuality, Male, Epidemics
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
