Special Scars: Warts

Warts are non-cancerous skin growths caused by a viral infection in the skin or mucous membranes. Warts are usually skin-colored and may feel rough to some can be dark, flat and smooth. The lesions are caused by a virus "family" called the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and may appear on any part of the body. Warts seem to start from injured or broken skin and people with a weakened immune system are more prone to a wart infection.

There are several kinds of warts:

Common warts grow around the nails, on fingers and on the back of the hands. They commonly grow where skin has been broken, such as where fingernails are bitten or hangnails pulled.

Foot warts, normally on the soles of the feet, are called plantar warts. Most plantar warts are flattened by the pressure of walking. Plantar can be painful and can feel like a small stone in the shoe.

Flat warts are small and smooth, but tend to grow in numbers of 20 to 100 at any one time. In children, they are most common on the face. In adult men, they are often in the beard area and on the legs in women. Skin irritation from shaving lets the virus invade the skin.

Genital warts (called condyloma), are common and tend to be small and flat but can also be thin and tall. These are soft and can occur on the genitalia, within the vagina, on the cervix in women, and around the anus or within the rectum. The viruses causing these warts rarely affect the hands or feet but can spread in the mucous membranes of the mouth. Such warts should be regularly checked by a physician and women with genital warts should have regular PAP tests.

The most common treatments are by cryosurgery (freezing with liquid nitrogen), the CO2 laser or the pulsed dye laser. However, there are many other treatments and and a recent review listed 19 methods used for wart removal. The application of salicylic acid pads which are available without prescription is usually helpful, but a slow method. Chemical peels with an acid such as trichloroacetic acid or a blistering agent such as cantharidin may work. The warts may be injected with cancer chemotherapeutic drugs (such as bleomycin) or interferon, which causes an immune system attack on the wart.

Immunotherapy treatments attempt to cause the body to attack the wart. One method paints chemicals that bind to proteins in the wart and cause a mild allergic reaction around the wart. This often causes the disappearance of the wart.

Some warts spontaneously disappear and forty percent of untreated patients will be free of warts after 2 years.

One surprisingly treatment that is often successful for wart removal is hypnosis. In some persons, the power of subconscious suggestion is able cause a regression of warts when other treatments have failed. A book describing these methods is Clinical Hypnosis: Principles and Applications by Harold B. Crasilneck, Ph.D. and James A. Hall, M.D. ISBN # 0-205-10082-1.

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