Warts and Plantar Warts

	Topic Overview
	Health Tools
	Cause
	Symptoms
	What Happens
	What Increases Your Risk
	When To Call a Doctor
	Exams and Tests
	Treatment Overview
	Prevention
	Home Treatment
	Medications
	Surgery
	Other Treatment
	Other Places To Get Help
	Related Information
	References
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This topic has information about warts on any part of the body except the genitals. For information about warts on the genitals, see the topic Genital Warts.

What are warts, and what causes them?

A wart is a harmless skin growth caused by some types of the virus called the human papillomavirus (HPV). There are more than 100 known types of HPV. HPV infects the top layer of skin, usually entering the body in an area of broken skin. The virus causes the top layer of skin to grow rapidly, forming a wart. Most warts go away on their own within months or years.

Warts can grow anywhere on the body. They are most common among children and young adults.

There are five kinds of warts. They look different and form on different parts of the body.

• Common warts grow most often on the hands, but they may be anywhere on the body. They are rough, shaped like a dome, and gray-brown in color.
• Plantar warts grow on the soles of the feet. They look like hard, thick patches of skin with dark specks. Plantar warts may cause pain when you walk, and you may feel like you are stepping on a pebble.
• Flat warts usually grow on the face, arms, or legs. They are small (usually smaller than the eraser on the end of a pencil), have flat tops, and can be pink, light brown, or light yellow.
• Filiform warts usually grow around the mouth, nose, or beard area. They are the same color as your skin and have growths that look like threads sticking out of them.
• Periungual warts grow under and around the toenails and fingernails. They look like rough bumps with an uneven surface and border. They can affect nail growth.

How are warts spread?

Warts are easily spread by direct contact with a human papillomavirus. You can infect yourself again by touching the wart and then another part of your body. You can infect another person by sharing towels, razors, or other personal items. After contact with HPV, it can take 2 to 9 months of slow growth beneath the skin before you notice a wart.

It is unlikely that you will get a wart every time you come in contact with HPV. Some people are more likely to get warts than others.

What are the symptoms?

Warts come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. A wart may be a bump with a rough surface, or it may be flat and smooth. Tiny blood vessels grow into the core of the wart to supply it with blood. In both common and plantar warts, these blood vessels may look like dark dots in the wart's center. In most cases, the skin lines and creases over the wart look distorted.

Warts are usually painless. But a wart that grows in a spot where you put pressure, such as on a finger or on the bottom of the foot, can be painful.

How are warts diagnosed?

A doctor usually can tell if a skin growth is a wart just by looking at it. Your doctor may take a sample of the wart and look at it under a microscope (skin biopsy). This may be done if it is not clear that the growth is a wart. It may also be done if a skin growth is darker than the skin surrounding it, is an irregular patch on the skin, bleeds, or is large and fast-growing.

How are they treated?

Most warts don't need treatment. But if you have warts that are painful or spreading, or if you are bothered by the way they look, your treatment choices include:

• Using a home treatment such as salicylic acid or adhesive tape. You can get these without a prescription.
• Putting a stronger medicine on the wart, or getting a shot of medicine in it.
• Freezing the wart (cryotherapy).
• Removing the wart with surgery (electrosurgery, curettage, laser surgery).

Wart treatment does not always work. Even after a wart shrinks or goes away, warts may come back or spread to other parts of the body. This is because most treatments destroy the wart but do not kill the virus that causes the wart.

Frequently Asked Questions

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	Should I treat warts or plantar warts?

A wart develops when a human papillomavirus infects the outermost layer of skin and causes the skin cells to grow rapidly. The virus can then spread from an existing wart to other areas of the body, causing more warts. Various types of this virus thrive in warm, moist environments such as showers, locker room floors, and swimming pool areas.

You are most likely to develop a wart where you have broken skin, such as a cut, hangnail, closely bitten nail, or scrape. Plantar warts are common to swimmers whose feet are not only moist and softened but are also scratched and broken by rough pool surfaces. Common warts are often seen among those who handle meat, chicken, and fish.

How are warts spread?

Warts are easily spread by direct contact with a human papillomavirus. You can reinfect yourself by touching the wart and then another part of your body. You can infect others by sharing towels, razors, or other personal items. After exposure to a human papillomavirus, it can take 2 to 9 months of slow growth beneath the skin before you notice a wart.¹

It is unlikely that you will develop a wart every time you are exposed to a human papillomavirus. Some people are more likely to develop warts than others.

Genital warts are very contagious. For more information, see the topic Genital Warts.

Warts occur in a variety of shapes and sizes. A wart may appear as a bump with a rough surface, or it may be flat and smooth. Tiny blood vessels (capillaries) grow into the core of the wart to supply it with blood. In both common and plantar warts, these capillaries may appear as dark dots (seeds) in the wart's center.

Following are descriptions of the main types of warts:

• Common warts usually appear singly or in groups on the hands, although they may grow on any part of the body. They usually are rough, gray-brown, dome-shaped growths.
• Plantar warts can develop on any part of the foot. Sometimes dark specks are visible beneath the surface of the wart. When pressure from standing or walking pushes a plantar wart beneath the skin's surface, a layer of thick, tough skin similar to a callus develops over it. As the callus and wart get larger, walking can become painful, much like walking with a pebble in your shoe. Multiple plantar warts can form in a large, flat cluster known as a "mosaic wart."
• Flat warts are usually found on the face, arms, or legs. They are small (usually smaller than the eraser on the end of a pencil), and there are usually several in one area. They have flat tops and can be pink, light brown, or light yellow. Flat warts are often spread by shaving.
• Filiform warts, a kind of flat wart, can grow around the mouth, nose, and beard area. The surface of this type of wart has many flesh-colored, fingerlike projections.
• Periungual warts are found under and around the toenails and fingernails. They appear as rough, irregular bumps. They can affect nail growth.
• Genital warts can be extremely small and difficult to detect. For more information, see the topic Genital Warts.

Common and flat warts usually do not cause pain. However, they can be bothersome and can spread easily if they are in areas that are constantly irritated by rubbing or shaving. Visible warts can be embarrassing for some people. Plantar warts often cause pain, especially if they are located over bony areas of the foot.

Other skin conditions may look like warts. These include:

• Seborrheic keratoses, which are noncancerous growths of the skin. They vary in color from light tan to black and in size from very small to the size of a coin. The growths may look waxy, pasted on, or stuck on.
• Skin tags (acrochordon), which are small, soft pieces of skin that stick out on a thin stem. They most often appear on the neck, armpits, upper trunk, and body folds. They commonly appear after middle age.
• Corns, which are areas of thick, hardened, dead skin.
• Skin cancer. Skin cancer may appear as a growth or mole, a change in a growth or mole, a sore that does not heal, or irritation of the skin.

Warts cover the lines and creases in the skin—this is one way to tell a wart from other skin conditions.

Human papillomaviruses can live on healthy skin without causing infection. However, when a human papillomavirus enters the body through small breaks in the skin, it can infect the skin cells beneath the surface, causing a wart to grow.

• A wart can take up to 9 months to grow before it becomes visible.¹
• Warts, particularly newer ones, are easily spread. They can spread to other parts of the body or to other people. You can reinfect yourself by touching the wart and then another part of your body. You can infect other people by sharing towels, razors, or other personal items.
• Common and flat warts can sometimes spread to the genitals and anus, especially in children.
• Plantar warts can be pushed beneath the skin's surface by pressure from standing and walking. A calluslike thickening of the skin slowly forms over most of the wart.
• Periungual warts can affect nail growth.
• It may be hard to get rid of warts after they develop. However, they generally go away on their own within months or years.²
• Just before warts disappear on their own, they may turn black.

Risk factors you cannot control

Risk factors you cannot control include:

• How well your immune system responds to infection by a human papillomavirus. When a virus enters the body, the immune system creates antibodies to help destroy the virus. An impaired immune system puts you at greater risk for warts.
• Your age. Warts occur most often in children and young adults.¹ As you get older, you may find that you get fewer warts or your warts go away. Warts are less common among older people, perhaps because people develop immunity to human papillomaviruses over time.¹

Risk factors you can control

Try to avoid the following risk factors:

• Walking barefoot on moist surfaces, as in public showers, locker rooms, and around swimming pool areas.
• Sharing towels, razors, and other personal items with a person who has warts.
• Touching warts on yourself or someone else.
• Biting your nails or cuticles.
• Wearing closed or tight shoes that cause sweaty feet.

See your health professional if:

• You are not sure whether a skin growth is a wart. If you are older than age 60 and have never had warts, consider seeing your family doctor or other health professional to check for skin cancer.
• Nonprescription home treatment is not successful after 2 to 3 months.
• Warts are growing or spreading rapidly despite treatment.
• Signs of bacterial infection develop, including:
  • Increased pain, swelling, redness, tenderness, or heat.
  • Red streaks extending from the area.
  • Discharge of pus.
  • Fever of 100°F (37.78°C) or higher with no other cause.
• A plantar wart becomes too painful to walk on.
• You have diabetes or peripheral arterial disease and you need treatment for a wart on a leg or foot.
• You have warts on your genitals or around the anus. For more information, see the topic Genital Warts.

Watchful Waiting

Watchful waiting is a period of time during which you and your health professional observe your symptoms or condition without using medical treatment. It is often appropriate treatment for warts, because they generally go away on their own within months or years.² However, you may want to consider treating a wart to prevent it from spreading to other parts of your body or to other people. You can try a nonprescription wart treatment for 2 to 3 months before deciding to see a health professional.

Who To See

Warts can be diagnosed and treated by most health professionals, including:

• Nurse practitioners.
• Physician assistants.
• Family medicine doctors.
• Internists.
• Dermatologists.
• Pediatricians.
• Podiatrists.

To prepare for your appointment, see the topic Making the Most of Your Appointment

Warts are usually diagnosed based only on their appearance.

In rare cases, more testing is done. If the diagnosis of a skin condition is unclear or if you are at high risk of having skin cancer, your health professional may take a sample of the growth and examine it (a skin biopsy). A biopsy is usually done if a skin growth is darker than the skin surrounding it, appears as an irregular patch on the skin, bleeds, or is large and growing rapidly.

Proper diagnosis of plantar warts is important. Some wart treatments can cause scarring.

Not all warts need to be treated. They generally go away on their own within months or years.² This may be because, with time, your immune system is able to destroy the human papillomavirus that causes warts.

You may decide to treat a wart if it is:

• Painful.
• Embarrassing.
• Easily irritated.
• Growing or spreading to other parts of your body or to other people.

The goal of wart treatment is to destroy or remove the wart without creating scar tissue, which can be more painful than the wart itself. How a wart is treated depends on the type of wart, its location, and its symptoms. Also important is your willingness to follow a weeks- or months-long course of treatment.

Many people first treat warts themselves by using a nonprescription product such as salicylic acid or nonprescription cryotherapy, which freezes the wart. Cryotherapy can also be done in your doctor's office.

Wart treatment is not always successful. Even after a wart shrinks or disappears, warts may return or spread to other parts of the body. This is because most treatments only destroy the wart and do not kill the virus that causes the wart.

For more information, see:

Should I treat warts or plantar warts?

Home treatment

Many people do not treat warts unless they are unsightly or painful. If you choose to treat your wart, home treatment is usually the first treatment tried. It includes:

• Salicylic acid, a nonprescription medication that softens the skin layers that form a wart so that they can be rubbed off. It is available as a paint, cream, plaster, tape, or patch that you put on the wart. Salicylic acid may take weeks to months to cure a wart. Salicylic acid formulas include Compound W Wart Remover, Occlusal, and Salacid.
• Tape occlusion (duct tape). This treatment uses tape to cover the wart for a period of time.
• Nonprescription cryotherapy. Although cryotherapy can be performed in your health professional's office, a type of this treatment for common warts on the hands and feet can be done at home. You spray a combination of two chemicals into a foam applicator and then hold the applicator to the wart for a few seconds. This treatment should not be used for children younger than 4 or by pregnant or breast-feeding women.

If you are uncertain that a skin growth is a wart, or if you have diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, or other major illnesses that may affect your treatment, it is best to see a health professional.

Treatment by your health professional

Cryotherapy is often used if home treatment is not successful. This procedure uses a very cold liquid to freeze a wart. Cryotherapy poses little risk of scarring, although it can be painful.

Less commonly used treatment by your health professional includes:

• Retinoid cream (Retin-A, Avita), which is a prescription medication that you apply to the wart at home. It disrupts the wart's skin cell growth.
• Cantharidin (Cantharone, Cantharone Plus), which causes the skin under the wart to blister, lifting the wart off of the skin. This medication is injected into the wart at your health professional's office.
• Bichloracetic acid (BCA), which kills warts by destroying the proteins in the cells. It is useful for warts on the palms and the soles of the feet. BCA also can destroy normal cells, which is why careful application is needed. A health professional applies BCA once a week.
• Immunotherapy, which triggers your immune system to destroy the virus causing the wart. Because some of the substances used for immunotherapy are expensive, dangerous, or require specialized handling, such treatment is usually considered only after other methods have failed. Immunotherapy options include contact sensitizers (such as squaric acid dibutyl ester or SADBE), imiquimod (Aldara), and interferon. Interferon is an experimental treatment and is used only for severe and treatment-resistant warts. Discuss the benefits and side effects of interferon treatment with your health professional.

Surgery

If home treatment, cryotherapy, or medication does not eliminate your wart, your doctor may try to surgically remove the wart. Options include:

• Electrosurgery and curettage. Electrosurgery is burning the wart with an electrical current. Curettage is cutting the wart off with a sharp knife or a small, spoon-shaped tool. The two procedures are often used together.
• Laser surgery, which is burning the wart off with an intense beam of light.

For electrosurgery, curettage, and laser surgery, a local anesthetic is used to numb the skin before the procedure.

What To Think About

Nonprescription salicylic acid is as effective as or more effective than other treatments, with minimal risk and pain.³

Other treatment options include the medications 5-fluorouracil and cimetidine and using light or lasers (photodynamic therapy).

Factors to consider before treatment

• Cost. Home treatment is often as effective as treatment by a health professional and costs less. However, home treatment may take longer. Less expensive home treatments include tape occlusion or nonprescription salicylic acid.
• Ability to tolerate pain. Quicker but more painful methods include some topical medications (such as cantharidin) or cryotherapy. You may want to pick a slower, less painful method of wart removal. These methods include tape occlusion and salicylic acid treatments.
• Potential for scarring. Scarring is the most important consideration when choosing a wart treatment. Scarring from treatment may be permanent and can be as painful as the wart itself. The bottom of the foot is especially sensitive, a consideration in the case of plantar warts. Scarring is also a cosmetic concern. Treatments that are less likely to leave a scar include salicylic acid, cryotherapy, and laser surgery.
• Risk of infection. Treatment can sometimes cause infection. If you have an impaired immune system or a condition such as diabetes or peripheral arterial disease, discuss your increased risk of infection with your health professional. You may need to take special precautions.
• History of recurrent warts. If you have a history of warts that recur, you may want to discuss more aggressive treatment methods with your health professional.
• Location and number of warts. Large areas covered by warts may be better treated with salicylic acid than with more painful, potentially scarring methods.
• Age. Painful treatments, such as cryotherapy, may not be appropriate for young children. If you are older than age 60 and have never had warts, you may want to see a health professional to check any skin growths for skin cancer.
• Time needed for treatment. Topical (putting medication on the wart) treatment is often slower than surgical treatment. Some treatment methods, such as immunotherapy applied by a health professional, require repeated office visits. In such cases, the expense and inconvenience may outweigh the benefits of therapy.

The main way to prevent warts is to avoid contact with the human papillomavirus (HPV) that causes warts. If you are exposed to this virus, you may or may not develop warts, depending on how susceptible you are to the virus.

In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Gardasil (HPV vaccine(What is a PDF document?)). It protects against four types of HPV, which together cause most cases of cervical cancer and genital warts. Gardasil is recommended for girls 11 to 12 years old. The immunization is also recommended for females 13 to 26 years old who did not receive it when they were younger. It can be given to girls as young as 9 years old. Studies show that the vaccine is safe and works well to help prevent cervical cancer and genital warts.⁴ For more information, see the topic Immunizations.

Tips on avoiding the human papillomavirus

• Avoid touching warts on yourself or others.
• Do not share razors, towels, socks, or shoes with another person. Someone with no visible warts can still be carrying the virus.
• Avoid walking barefoot on warm, moist surfaces where the wart virus may be alive. Wear shower shoes when using public showers, locker rooms, or pool areas.
• Keep your feet dry. If your feet sweat heavily, wear socks that absorb moisture or wick it away from the skin.
• Avoid irritating the soles of your feet. Warts grow more easily if your skin has been injured or broken in some way.

Tips on preventing warts from spreading

• Keep warts covered with a bandage or athletic tape.
• Do not bite your nails or cuticles, as this may spread warts from one finger to another.

Home treatment is often the first treatment used for warts. When done properly, home treatment is usually less painful than surgical treatment.

Home treatment includes:

• Salicylic acid, which is currently considered the most desirable wart treatment, based on its effectiveness and safety. It is as effective as or more effective than other treatment, with minimal risk and pain.³ The treatment takes 2 to 3 months. Salicylic acid formulas include Compound W Wart Remover, Occlusal, and Salacid.
• Tape occlusion (duct tape), in which you use duct tape to cover the wart for a period of time. This treatment takes 1 to 2 months.
• Nonprescription cryotherapy. Although cryotherapy can be performed in your health professional's office, a type of this treatment for common warts on the hands and feet can be done at home. You spray a combination of two chemicals into a foam applicator and then hold the applicator to the wart for a few seconds. This treatment should not be used for children younger than 4 or by pregnant or breast-feeding women.

If you are uncertain that a skin growth is a wart, or if you have diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, or other major illnesses that may affect your treatment, it is best to see a health professional.

Do not use home treatment methods to remove genital warts. For more information, see the topic Genital Warts.

Using salicylic acid

Salicylic acid is available as a paint, cream, plaster, tape, or patch that you put on the wart. Be sure to read and follow the specific instructions that are supplied with the medication, or follow your health professional's instructions. Salicylic acid may take weeks to months to cure a wart.

For best results:

• Before applying salicylic acid, soak the wart in water to help loosen and soften skin. This helps the medication penetrate the skin more easily.
• Apply salicylic acid to the wart when you go to bed. Cover the area with a bandage or sock and wash off the medication in the morning.
• Avoid getting salicylic acid on your unaffected skin. Salicylic acid should touch only the wart.
• With repeated application, salicylic acid causes the wart tissue to become soft so that it can be rubbed off easily.
• Remove dead tissue daily or once or twice a week with careful use of a file or pumice stone or as instructed on the medication package. Dead tissue contains living wart virus, so dispose of the dead skin carefully. The pumice stone or file will also have living wart virus on it. Don't use the file or pumice stone for any other purpose, or you may spread the virus.
• If treatment causes the area to become too tender, stop using the medication for 2 to 3 days.

Should I treat warts or plantar warts?

Reducing plantar wart pain

You can reduce plantar wart pain by:

• Wearing comfortable shoes and socks. Avoid high heels or shoes that increase pressure on your foot.
• Padding the wart with doughnut-shaped felt or a moleskin patch that can be purchased at drugstores. Place the pad around the plantar wart so that it relieves pressure on the wart. Also, consider placing pads or cushions in your shoes to make walking more comfortable.
• Using nonprescription medications, such as aspirin, ibuprofen (such as Advil), or acetaminophen (such as Tylenol) to help relieve pain. Do not give aspirin to anyone younger than 20 because of the risk of Reye's syndrome.

What to Think About

Most warts do not need to be treated. They generally go away on their own within months or years.² This may be because, with time, your immune system is able to destroy the human papillomavirus that causes warts.

Nonprescription salicylic acid is as effective as or more effective than other treatment, with minimal risk and pain.³

• A review of research suggests that salicylic acid is a safe treatment that effectively eliminates warts up to 75% of the time. By comparison, placebo or no treatment produced an approximate clearance rate of 50%.²
• There is currently no evidence that cryotherapy is any more effective than salicylic acid.³

Folk remedies, such as rubbing a wart with a bean, may have an effect on a wart. However, such treatment may simply coincide with the natural disappearance of a wart.

Never cut or burn off a wart yourself.

Most warts do not need to be treated. They generally go away on their own within months or years.² This may be because, with time, your immune system is able to destroy the human papillomavirus that causes warts.

If you decide to treat your warts, both nonprescription and prescription medications are available.

For more information, see:

Should I treat warts or plantar warts?

Medication Choices

Nonprescription medications

Nonprescription medications include:

• Salicylic acid, which softens the skin layers that form a wart so that they can be rubbed off. This topical medication is currently considered the most desirable wart treatment, based on its effectiveness and safety, but it may take weeks to months to cure a wart. Other therapies do not appear to be more effective and tend to cause more pain or other side effects.³ Salicylic acid formulas include Compound W Wart Remover, Occlusal, and Salacid.

Prescription medications

Prescription medications less commonly used to treat warts include:

• Retinoid cream (Retin-A, Avita), which is a prescription medication that you apply to the wart at home. It disrupts the wart's skin cell growth.
• Cantharidin (Cantharone, Cantharone Plus), which causes the skin under the wart to blister, lifting the wart off the skin. This medication is injected into the wart at your health professional's office.
• Bichloracetic acid (BCA), which kills warts by destroying the proteins in the cells. It is useful for warts on the palms and on the soles of the feet. BCA also can destroy normal cells, which is why careful application is needed. A health professional applies BCA once a week.

Other medications

Immunotherapy triggers your immune system to destroy the virus causing the wart. Because some of the substances used for immunotherapy are expensive, dangerous, or require specialized handling, such treatment is usually considered only after other methods have failed. Immunotherapy options include contact sensitizers (such as squaric acid dibutyl ester or SADBE), imiquimod (Aldara), and interferon. Interferon is an experimental treatment and is used only for severe and treatment-resistant warts. Discuss the benefits and side effects of interferon treatment with your health professional.

Bleomycin injection destroys the skin containing the wart. Because bleomycin is painful during and after the injection, it is used infrequently.

See a table comparing these other treatment options.

What To Think About

Salicylic acid treatments are often effective. They are not very painful, not very expensive, and usually do not cause scarring. Salicylic acid is a good treatment for children because it is not very painful. For treatment to be successful, salicylic acid must be applied on a regular basis, usually for a number of months.

Wart treatment is not always successful. Even after a wart shrinks or disappears, warts may return or spread to other parts of the body. This is because most treatments only destroy the wart, but do not kill the virus that causes the wart.

Your treatment options will depend on the type, number, and location of the wart(s).

Other medications used for warts include 5-fluorouracil, which is more often used on genital warts, and cimetidine. Cimetidine can be taken by mouth (orally) or as an injection.

As with any medication, talk to your health professional before using a wart medication if you are or may be pregnant. Some wart medications may cause birth defects.

It is necessary to distinguish a plantar wart from a callus before choosing a treatment. Wart treatment applied to a callus may be painful or create scar tissue.

Plantar warts are often difficult to treat because they lie beneath the skin. A health professional may need to pare the skin covering a wart to help the medication penetrate the wart.

Surgery is an option if home treatment and treatment at your health professional's office has failed. Surgery for warts is usually quick and effective. No single surgical method is more effective than another in curing warts. Generally, health professionals start with the surgical method that is least likely to cause scarring.

Surgery Choices

The most common types of surgical treatment for wart removal include:

• Electrosurgery and curettage. Electrosurgery is burning the wart with an electrical current. Curettage is cutting the wart off with a sharp knife or a small, spoon-shaped tool. The two procedures are often used together.
• Laser surgery. Laser surgery burns off the wart with an intense beam of light.

For electrosurgery, curettage, and laser surgery, a local anesthetic is used to numb the skin before the procedure.

What To Think About

A wart may return after surgery because surgery removes the wart but does not destroy the virus that causes the wart.

The type of surgery used to remove warts depends on their type, location, and size. Curettage, electrosurgery, and laser surgery are more likely than cryotherapy to leave scars and thus are usually reserved for hard-to-remove or recurring warts. If you have a large area of warts, curettage may not be an effective treatment.

Some surgical treatments may be too painful for some children.

When making a decision about surgical wart removal, consider the following factors:

• Scarring. Nonsurgical treatments are less likely to cause scarring than surgical treatments. Scars that develop after surgery on the sole of the foot (for plantar warts) can be very painful.
• Pain. The pain from the surgical treatment usually comes from the injection of local anesthetic, not from the procedure itself. You may have pain after the drug wears off. Except for paring, all surgical treatments require anesthetic.
• Cost of treatment. Surgery can be expensive.
• Duration of treatment. Surgical treatments remove warts more quickly than nonsurgical treatments. However, some treatments require repeat office visits.

Should I treat warts or plantar warts?

Cryotherapy, which uses a very cold liquid to freeze a wart, is the most commonly used procedure that does not involve medication to treat warts. This procedure poses little risk of scarring but can be painful.

Tape occlusion (duct tape), in which you use tape to cover the wart for a period of time, takes 1 to 2 months to remove the wart.

For more information, see:

Should I treat warts or plantar warts?

Organization

• Genital Warts (Human Papillomavirus)

Citations

1. Lowy DR, Androphy AJ (2003). Warts. In IM Freedberg et al., eds., Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine, 6th ed., vol. 2, pp. 2119–2131. New York: McGraw-Hill.

2. Bigby M, et al. (2005). Warts. Clinical Evidence (14): 2091–2103.

3. Gibbs S, et al. (2006). Local treatments for cutaneous warts. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (1). Oxford: Update Software.

4. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2006). FDA licenses new vaccine for prevention of cervical cancer and other diseases in females caused by human papillomavirus. FDA News. Available online: http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01385.html.

Other Works Consulted

• Habif TP, et al. (2005). Warts (verruca vulgaris) section of Viral infections. In Skin Disease: Diagnosis and Treatment, 2nd ed., pp. 186–193. Philadelphia: Elsevier Mosby.

• Stulberg DL, Hutchinson AG (2003). Molluscum contagiosum and warts. American Family Physician, 67(6): 1233–1240.

• Wolff K, et al. (2005). Human papillomavirus infections. In Fitzpatrick's Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology, 5th ed., pp. 776–781. New York: McGraw-Hill.