Warts (and Verrucas)

A wart is a lump on the skin produced when a virus invades skin cells and causes them to multiply rapidly. Some people have a low resistance to the various viruses that can cause warts and are therefore more likely to have them. Wart viruses spread by touch or by contact with the skin shed from a wart. Warts are common in teenagers, less so in children, and even less so in adults. There are no serious health risks associated with warts, but they can cause embarrassment because of their appearance.

What are the symptoms?

There are several different types of warts, each produced by a specific virus. The common wart, also called a verruca or a plantar wart, is a small, hard, horny, white or pink lump with a cauliflower-like surface. Inside are small, clotted blood vessels that resemble black splinters. The common wart can grow anywhere on your body but is most likely to develop on your hands. On the bottoms of your feet and palms of your hands, a common wart tends to become pushed in so that its surface is level with the rest of the skin. Several warts may appear next to one another on your foot, forming a mosaic-like area 25 mm (1 in.) or more across.

Common warts on most parts of the body are usually painless. However, a wart on the underside of your foot can make you feel quite uncomfortable, as though you were walking with a stone in your shoe.

Among the other types of warts are plane warts, small, pale-brown, smooth warts that occur most often on children's faces. Another type of wart is called molluscum contagiosum. These are tiny, white, pearly lumps, each with a central depression. These are also most common in children. Penile warts and vulval warts also occur.

What should be done?

Most warts disappear naturally, often within a few months but sometimes over several years. You may prefer to wait for this to happen. But if you have any warts that you consider unsightly or annoying, carry out the self-help described below to remove them. However, there are two cases in which you should consult a physician. One is if you have penile or vulval warts. The other is if you develop any sort of wart and you are over the age of 45. In older people, what looks like a wart may be a more serious skin condition, such as skin cancer.

What is the treatment?

Self-help: There are many folk remedies for removing warts, but their apparent effectiveness is simply due to the fact that most warts eventually disappear of their own accord. The best way to treat unsightly warts is to apply a wart remedy in the form of paint, cream or plaster. These are available without a prescription at most drugstores. These preparations contain chemicals that destroy the abnormal skin cells. However, these chemicals will also damage the surrounding healthy cells, so the preparations should be applied carefully to minimize soreness. Do not treat warts on your face or genitals with a wart remedy, because the skin on these areas is very sensitive. And never allow these preparations to get into your eyes. If you have an unsightly or annoying wart that does not respond to this treatment, see your physician.

Professional help: Your physician may prescribe a more effective kind of wart preparation. If this fails, the doctor can remove the wart by freezing it with liquid nitrogen or burning it off with electricity. A few days after this rather painful treatment, the wart will probably fall off. If it does not, repeated treatment should remove it. As an alternative to freezing or burning, a wart can be scraped off (curettage) after first being numbed by a local anesthetic. Occasionally a wart seems to be resistant to all forms of treatment.