The virus that causes warts is HPV (human papillomavirus). One of the distinctive features of this virus is that it lives only in the epidermis of the skin and mucous membranes, i.e. only on the genital epidermis (usually on the warts and the skin around the warts). Some patients often mention the use of blood tests in some specialist hospitals to check for the virus, but in fact these tests are meaningless as they only check for antibodies to the HPV virus in the blood, not the virus itself, and are generally only used as a reference value. It is not practical to diagnose condyloma acuminata and determine whether it is recurring. For example, even if the warts are visible after the initial infection, the test may be negative for antibodies (after some time has passed). In some cases, even if the warts have not recurred for 8 months after treatment and have been clinically cured, some people may still test positive (and take a long time to turn negative). In addition, many healthy people may also test positive at some point in their lives. Therefore, a positive antibody test cannot be used to determine whether treatment is still needed or whether the person is cured.