INTRODUCTION

Circumcision is one of the oldest operations known to man dating back 6000 years to the early Egyptians (1, 2). The penile foreskin or prepuce is excised at circumcision leaving the glans penis exposed (1). Many advantages have been attributed to male circumcision (3); uncircumcised infants are reported to develop urinary tract infections more frequently than circumcised infants (4), circumcision may provide protection against sexually transmitted infections including chancroid, syphilis and gonorrhoea (5–7) and uncircumcised males have been shown to harbour oncogenic human papilloma virus beneath the prepuce and this organism is linked to cancer of the uterine cervix and penis
(8).