Plantar wart medical therapy
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Plantar wart Microchapters |
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Diagnosis |
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Treatment |
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Case Studies |
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Plantar wart medical therapy On the Web |
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American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Plantar wart medical therapy |
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Risk calculators and risk factors for Plantar wart medical therapy |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
No treatment in common use is 100% effective. The most comprehensive medical review found that no treatment method was more than 73% effective and using a placebo had a 27% average success rate.
Treatment
The American Family Physician recommends:[2]
| First-line therapy | over the counter salicylic acid |
| Second-line therapy | Cryosurgery, intralesional immunotherapy, or pulsed dye laser therapy |
| Third-line therapy | Bleomycin, surgical excision |
Podiatrists and dermatologists are considered specialists in the treatment of plantar warts, though most warts are treated by primary care physicians.
- Keratolytic Chemicals
- The treatment of warts by keratolysis involves the peeling away of dead surface skin cells with trichloroacetic acid or salicylic acid.
- Immunotherapy
- Intralesional injection of antigens (mumps, candida or trichophytin antigens USP) is a new wart treatment which may trigger a host immune response to the wart virus, resulting in wart resolution. Distant, non-injected warts may also disappear.
- Chemotherapy
- Topical application of dilute glutaraldehyde (a virucidal chemical, used for cold sterilization of surgical instruments) is an older effective wart treatment. More modern chemotherapy agents, like 5-fluoro-uracil, are also effective topically or injected intralesionally. Retinoids, systemically (eg. isotretinoin) or topically (tretinoin cream) may be effective.
- As warts are contagious, precautions should be taken to avoid spreading.