Características de los casos de sífilis infecciosa diagnosticados en Instituciones Penitenciarias, 2007-2008

objective: to describe the characteristics of cases of syphilis amongst prison inmates. materials and methods: descriptive study. confirmed cases of primary, secondary and early latent syphilis were identified in prisons in spain during 2007-2008. socio-demographic and clinical information, as well as variables related to transmission, was collected by the attending physicians in a standard form. frequency distributions of each variable were performed. annual incidence rates were calculated. to evaluate the association between qualitative variables, the χ2 and fisher's exact tests were used; the mann-whitney test was utilized to compare quantitative variables. results: during the study period, 94 syphilis cases were identified (35.1% primary, 20.2% secondary and 44.7% early latent). the incidence rates were 0.9 cases/1000 prisoners in 2007 and 0.7 cases/1000 prisoners in 2008. most cases were male (90.4%), between 31-40 years old (30.9%) and foreigners (52.1%). the majority of patients were diagnosed through screening (80.9%). heterosexual contact was the most frequent transmission route (83.0%). overall hiv prevalence was 5.3%, and 16.0% of the patients had a history of previous sexually transmitted infections (sti). almost 40% of the cases reported being a client of a sex worker. conclusions: incidence of syphilis in prison is high. many syphilis patients were detected through screening, highlighting the role of the spanish prison health service in sti control.