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Men who have sex with men MSM and who engage in condomless anal intercourse with casual partners are at high risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections STIs , but reliable epidemiological data are scarce. Data from individual studies were pooled building subgroups along study types and geography.
We performed sensitivity analyses, including data only from studies that met pre-defined quality criteria. Twenty-four publications on 20 studies were included. For syphilis, incidence rates ranged from 1. Incidence rates for gonorrhoea and chlamydia of any site ranged from Considering only studies that met the criteria for sensitivity analysis yielded pooled estimates of The overall estimate for hepatitis C incidence was 1.
Despite partly heterogeneous results, the data depict high incidence rates of STIs among MSM who engage in higher-risk sexual behaviours such as condomless sex with casual partners. Data on the epidemiology of sexually transmitted infections STIs suggest a high burden of disease worldwide [ 1 ].
Increases in the incidence of chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis infections have been observed in numerous countries, particularly among men who have sex with men MSM [ 2 β 6 ]. At the same time, the decreasing susceptibility of bacterial pathogens such as Neisseria gonorrhoeae [ 7 β 11 ] and Mycoplasma genitalium [ 12 , 13 ] to antimicrobials is becoming a major public health problem, especially given evidence that the risk of HIV transmission is higher in the presence of other STIs [ 14 β 17 ].
