Plantar wart surgery
Plantar wart Microchapters |
Diagnosis |
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Treatment |
Case Studies |
Plantar wart surgery On the Web |
American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Plantar wart surgery |
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.
Surgical Therapy
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 |
- Liquid nitrogen : Cryosurgery with liquid nitrogen. A common treatment that works by producing a blister under the wart. It is painful but usually nonscarring.
- Electrodesiccation and surgical excision produce scarring. If the wart recurs, the patient has a permanent scar along with the wart.
- Lasers may be effective, especially the 585nm pulsed dye laser which the most effective treatment of all, and does not leave scars, but is generally a last resort treatment as it is expensive and painful, and multiple laser treatments are required (generally 4-6 treatments repeated once a month until the wart disappears).