A study of the relationship between tensile testing of condoms and breakage in use.

The ability of the condom wall to maintain its integrity throughout sexual intercourse is critical to its role in halting the spread of major sexually transmissible pathogens including the human immunodeficiency virus. There are three principal in vitro performance tests applied to condoms: a test for freedom from holes, an inflation test, and tensile testing. In this study we subjected condoms that had broken in use to tensile tests in order to determine any correlation between their in vivo and in vitro performance. Condoms which had broken in use showed similar tensile properties to those which had not. All passed all tensile test criteria. Thus, the inclusion of tensile testing in National Standards for condoms is not sufficient to insure strong products.