Anal warts and a hemorrhoid bump

These pages describe growths from human papillomavirus, including growths on or in the anus. ahem has not examined anyone and does not sell a treatment. A hard tender lump from an external hemorrhoid is a different description, on internal and external hemorrhoids.

Mayo Clinic dates its genital warts page December 19, 2023. Opened October 30, 2026, it says genital warts are a common sexually transmitted infection caused by HPV. They affect moist genital tissue and can look like small, skin-colored bumps. The bumps may resemble cauliflower. Often they are too small to see. Places Mayo Clinic lists include the anal canal and the anus, along with the vulva, vagina, cervix, penis, and scrotum. Warts can also form in the mouth or throat after oral sex with an infected person.

The CDC guideline, last reviewed July 22, 2021 and opened October 30, 2026, says anogenital warts are a common disease and that 90 percent are caused by nononcogenic HPV types 6 or 11. They are usually asymptomatic. Depending on size and location, they can be painful or itchy. They are usually flat, papular, or pedunculated growths on the genital mucosa. The page says warts can occur on perianal skin, the anus, the perineum, and other anogenital sites. Intra-anal warts are observed predominantly in people who have had receptive anal intercourse, and they can also occur in people without that history. Mayo Clinic's cauliflower line and the CDC's flat, papular, or pedunculated line describe appearance differently. They were not rewritten as one picture.

Mayo Clinic says to see a health care professional for bumps or warts in the genital area. The CDC says diagnosis is usually made by visual inspection. Biopsy can confirm it, and biopsy is indicated if lesions are atypical. The examples it gives are pigmented, indurated, affixed to underlying tissue, bleeding, or ulcerated. Biopsy might also be used when the diagnosis is uncertain, the lesions do not respond to treatment, or the disease worsens during treatment, particularly if the person is immunocompromised, including with HIV. The CDC says HPV testing is not recommended to diagnose anogenital warts, because the result does not confirm the wart and does not guide treatment.

The CDC says some anogenital lesions can resemble warts and do not respond to wart treatment. Condyloma lata, a manifestation of secondary syphilis, can be diagnosed by blood tests or by testing fluid from the lesions. That is a reason the page treats look-alikes as a clinician's problem. What an exam can include when the question is a hemorrhoid is on what a hemorrhoid exam checks.

The CDC says that if left untreated, anogenital warts can resolve on their own, stay the same, or increase in size or number. Because warts might resolve in less than a year, waiting can be an acceptable choice for some people. It says treatment does not cure the virus, and that warts often recur after treatment, especially during the first 3 months. Warts typically respond within 3 months of therapy when they are treated. The types of HPV that cause genital warts are different from the types that can cause cancer, on the counseling section of the same page. Women with genital warts do not need Pap tests more often than other women, on that page. The less-than-a-year line and the 3-month lines are the CDC's, last reviewed July 22, 2021.

The same CDC page says persistent infection with high-risk HPV types has a role in nearly all cervical cancers and in certain anal and other cancers, and that cervical cancer is the only HPV-associated cancer for which routine screening is recommended. Symptom overlap between anal cancer and a hemorrhoid is a different guide, anal cancer symptoms and hemorrhoids. This page does not turn a wart description into a cancer diagnosis.

The CDC guideline also prints named creams, acids, and office procedures, with strengths and schedules. Mayo Clinic's symptoms page does not print those schedules. A single-source dosing list was left off this page. The choice of treatment, on the CDC page, depends on wart size, number, and site, and on the person's preference, and no one treatment is presented as superior for every wart.

Mayo Clinic says genital warts almost always spread through sexual contact, including when the warts are too small to see. More than 40 strains of HPV affect the genital area. A condom lowers risk and does not fully protect, because HPV can infect skin the condom does not cover. The CDC counseling section says the same limit, and it says HPV types that cause warts can be passed without visible warts. It also says the time HPV was acquired cannot be pinned down, because warts can appear months or years later.

Mayo Clinic says the CDC recommends routine HPV vaccination for girls and boys ages 11 and 12, and that the vaccine can be given as early as age 9. People who start the series at ages 15 through 26 should receive three doses, on that Mayo Clinic page. The CDC wart guideline says a vaccine can prevent genital warts in people who have not yet been exposed to the wart-causing types, and that the vaccine will not treat existing HPV or existing warts. Those vaccine sentences were opened October 30, 2026. They are prevention lines from the two pages. They are not a treatment for a bump that is already present.