Warts

What is it?

Warts are common benign skin growths caused by a viral skin infection, namely the human papilloma virus (HPV).

How can you contract it?

Warts are contagious through direct skin contact. It is easier to get infected in particular when there are small wounds on the surface of the skin. Warts can spread as a group (mosaic shape) or elsewhere on the body (e.g. around the mouth when biting nails).

Warts thrive in a humid, warm environment. Therefore, you can more easily become infected in, for example, swimming pools or showers when another person with the same conditions was in the same place before you.

Characteristics and symptoms

Warts look like round to oval calloused thickenings of the skin. They usually show up on the feet, hands, face, knees and elbows, but in principle they can occur anywhere on the body. Sometimes they are skin-coloured and flat (flat shape) and sometimes they are more filiform (filiform type).

Warts are most common in children: they have not yet built up an immune system to repel the warts. Adults can also become infected. These growths usually disappear by themselves over time. However, the lesions can be painful and disruptive. They can also spread very quickly. Which are reasons to treat them anyway.

Diagnosis

The diagnosis of a wart is made based on what the dermatologist sees with the naked eye and usually also with the dermatoscope. Sometimes the thick, callous skin has to be removed first in order to obtain a better look. This is not painful.

Treatment

Warts do not always have to be treated. After all, they are not harmful. In two out of three cases, they disappear spontaneously within two years in children. Unfortunately, warts are often more persistent in adults. If a wart is unsightly or painful, for example, because it is at a pressure point in the heel, it is of course better to have it treated.

There are various treatment options:

• Ointments or liquid solutions to apply at home.
• Freezing off: the warts are touched up with liquid nitrogen at -196°C, which destroys the tissue. The treatment must be repeated several times. A liquid or cream (usually based on salicylic acid) can be prescribed between two treatments.
• If freezing is too painful or proves to be an inadequate solution, treatment with a cantharidin-based solution may be recommended. This substance causes blisters. The product has to work for six to eight hours under a plaster and is then washed off. Afterwards, a painful blister can develop. If it is very bothersome, it is better to puncture and disinfect the blister.
• Very stubborn warts can be treated by the dermatologist with bleomycin, using scratches or an injection. This is a form of localised chemotherapy that causes the cells to die off.
• A fourth treatment option is laser, especially the CO2 laser. This is preferentially used for solitary verrucae in adults. Healing takes a few weeks.

Warts rarely disappear completely after a single treatment. Usually, the therapy has to be applied several times. With the wart becoming smaller after each treatment.

Latest publication date: 15/05/2024