Mukwende M, et al. Table 2 summarises the baseline characteristics of their plantar warts. Or your health care provider might cut off a small section of the growth and send it to a lab for testing. The dots are tiny clotted blood vessels. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to compare the time to clearance of plantar warts between the two groups adjusting for the same covariates as for the primary outcome. They independently assessed the photographs for each participant to determine whether the plantar wart had cleared. Design A multicentre, open, two arm randomised controlled trial. Studies that have examined the prevalence of warts or verrucae have produced a wide range of estimatesfrom 0.84% in the US,1 3.3% to 4.7% in the UK,2 3 and up to 24% in 1618 year olds in Australia.4 Although most plantar warts will spontaneously disappear without treatment,5 6 many patients seek treatment for a variety of reasons, including discomfort or because they are prevented from doing sports and other activities of daily living. Sokumbi, O (expert opinion). This trial found that cryotherapy was significantly better than salicylic acid for the treatment of hand warts, but that there was no significant difference between treatments for plantar warts.9. Cryotherapy is done in a clinic and involves applying liquid nitrogen to the wart, either with a spray or a cotton swab. Check out these best-sellers and special offers on books and newsletters from Mayo Clinic Press. HPV vaccine for treatment of recalcitrant cutaneous warts in adults: A retrospective cohort study. If salicylic acid and freezing medicine don't work, your health care provider may suggest one or more of the following treatments: If a plantar wart goes away after treatment and another wart grows, it could be because the area was exposed again to HPV. Hands. Some wart removers are flammable. Any discrepancies were referred to a third assessor. The Cochrane systematic review identified only one trial that compared two different concentrations of salicylic acid.6 This trial found no evidence of a difference in the cure rates between the two treatments, but, as this trial was assessed as being of low quality, we cannot rule out the possibility that different cure rates might be achieved with different strengths of acid. In: Dermatology Secrets. Hence all hazard ratios were assumed constant during the follow-up period. However, data collected by the healthcare professionals about the total amount of acid applied during the course of the trial (mean amount applied 2.8 g) could suggest a lower adherence for the treatment period overall. These studies also showed no evidence that cryotherapy was more effective than salicylic acid (alone or in combination with lactic acid). SC acts as guarantor for the paper. The median number of plantar warts at 12 weeks in the salicylic acid group was two (range 020) and in the cryotherapy group was one (040), and no significant difference between the two groups (incident rate ratio 1.08 (0.81 to 1.43), P=0.62). 1998-2022 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER). This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here. Patients were younger in the studies by Bruggink et al9 and Steele and Irwin,11 with 59% of participants under the age of 16 in the latter study compared with 17% in our study. Secondary outcomes were (a) complete clearance of all plantar warts at 12 weeks controlling for age, whether the wart had been treated previously, and type of wart, (b) patient self reported clearance of plantar warts at six months, (c) time to clearance of plantar wart, (d) number of plantar warts at 12 weeks, and (e) patient satisfaction with the treatment. The mean number of visits to the clinic or general practice for cryotherapy was 3.6, with a mean duration between visits of 18.3 days. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. Accessed March 2, 2017. Review/update the Many people have removed warts with these self-care tips: In general, no matter which treatment you try, do these two things: You'll likely start by seeing your primary care provider, who may then refer you to a specialist in disorders of the skin (dermatologist) or feet (podiatrist). (Values are numbers (percentages) unless stated otherwise). We used negative binomial regression to compare the number of plantar warts at 12 weeks between the two treatment groups with adjustment for the number of plantar warts at baseline. If no photographs were available for a participant, however, then the blinded outcome assessment undertaken at the site was used. information submitted for this request. Participants whose plantar warts had not cleared were treated as censored, and we calculated their duration in the trial from their date of trial exit, date of last available assessment, or the 183 days to trial cessation, as appropriate. health information, we will treat all of that information as protected health Kwok SC, et al. Patients were directed to fix the adhesive ring with the hole over the verruca and to squeeze a little ointment into the hole and directly on to the verruca. All analyses were conducted on an intention to treat basis, including all patients in the groups to which they were randomised. The participants had longstanding plantar warts, most of which had been self treated. Main outcome measures Complete clearance of all plantar warts at 12 weeks. (Values are numbers (percentages) of patients). Viral diseases. Cohens measure of inter-rater agreement was used to assess agreement between the two assessors of the photographs for clearance. We compared the time to clearance of the plantar warts between the two groups adjusting for the same covariates as above (age, previous treatment, and type of wart). Interventions Cryotherapy with liquid nitrogen delivered by a healthcare professional, up to four treatments two to three weeks apart. This method can be painful, so your health care provider may numb the area first. Participants were eligible for the study if they were aged 12 years or over and had a plantar wart (verruca) that, in the opinion of a healthcare professional, was suitable for treatment with both salicylic acid and cryotherapy. Edinburgh, U.K.; New York, N.Y.: Elsevier; 2016. https://www.clinicalkey.com. British Journal of Dermatology. Evidence for the effectiveness of cryotherapy was limited: the review found two trials comparing cryotherapy with salicylic acid, and one comparing it with duct tape. Cryotherapy may also stimulate your immune system to fight viral warts. If I use a home treatment, under what conditions should I call you? The median age of patients in Bruggink et als study was 15 years (interquartile range 739) for cryotherapy patients and 13 (731) years for salicylic acid patients compared with median ages of 24 and 23 respectively in our study. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "MayoClinic.org," "Mayo Clinic Healthy Living," and the triple-shield Mayo Clinic logo are trademarks of Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. Mayo Clinic. Plantar warts. Mucocutaneous viral infections. There are other treatments available for cutaneous warts, but little good quality evidence assessing their effectiveness. American Family Physician. Our results confirm the findings of the two published studies comparing cryotherapy with salicylic acid10 11 and the results from a more recent Dutch primary care study9 which compared cryotherapy with salicylic acid or a combination of salicylic and lactic acid for the treatment of plantar and hand warts. In this study neither treatment was very effective with only 17/119 (14%) in the salicylic acid group and 15/110 (14%) in the cryotherapy group having complete clearance of plantar warts at 12 weeks, but the lack of a no treatment arm in this study means we cannot compare these cure rates with the natural resolution rate. Please note: your email address is provided to the journal, which may use this information for marketing purposes. 2nd ed. The treatment was repeated daily after gently pumicing or filing off the dead part of the verruca for a maximum of eight weeks. A logistic regression model was used to adjust the primary analysis for important prognostic variables (age, whether the plantar wart had been previously treated, and type of wart). Possible side effects of cryotherapy are pain, blisters and permanent changes in skin color (hypopigmentation or hyperpigmentation), particularly in people with brown or Black skin. Using one or more of the following treatments may help: Freezing medicine (cryotherapy). William Ransom and Son supplied the 50% salicylic acid (Verrugon) at no cost, and BOC provided one site with liquid nitrogen storage equipment at reduced cost. Our Housecall e-newsletter will keep you up-to-date on the latest health information. To provide you with the most relevant and helpful information, and understand which http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm381429.htm?source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery. SJ and ARK conducted the clinical analysis. Typically, first line treatments in the UK are weaker preparations of 15%26% salicylic acid. Copyright 2022 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, , professor, director of York Trials Unit. However, the overall cure rate achieved in this trial was much lower at 14% with a 0.65% difference in cure rates. McGraw Hill; 2016. https://accessmedicine.mhmedical.com. This is typical of the characteristics of patients presenting to healthcare professionals for treatment, so we can be confident that these results are broadly generalisable and that the study has external validity across the UK and Ireland. For some deep seated plantar warts, this might not have been sufficient to clear the wart. Non-significant correlation indicates that there is not enough evidence that the proportional hazard assumption has been violated. Cohens measure, used to assess the agreement between the two assessors of the photographs, was estimated to be 0.45 (95% confidence interval 0.35 to 0.55), which indicates a moderate level of agreement. Sign up for free, and stay up to date on research advancements, health tips and current health topics, like COVID-19, plus expertise on managing health. A major conclusion from the review was that a trial comparing topical salicylic acid with cryotherapy was urgently needed. Prescription-strength wart medications with salicylic acid work by removing a wart a layer at a time. Patients were asked to rate their satisfaction with their treatment on a five point scale from very happy to very unhappy on a postal or web based questionnaire at one, three, and 12 weeks (see table 5). At week 12, more patients were unhappy with salicylic acid than with cryotherapy, and more were very happy with cryotherapy than with salicylic acid. Our trial, however, does differ from the previous studies in respect to the cure rate. High WA, et al., eds. Secondary outcomes included (a) complete clearance of all plantar warts at 12 weeks after controlling for age, whether the plantar wart had been treated previously, and type of wart and (b) a second model to explore the effect of patient preferences, (c) with clearance of plantar wart at six months, (d) number of warts at 12 weeks, (e) time to clearance of wart, (f) patient satisfaction with the treatment, and (g) adverse events. Accessed Feb. 9, 2022. Special considerations in skin of color. This difference of 17% was not statistically significant. Logistic regression analysis showed no evidence of a difference between the salicylic acid and cryotherapy groups (odds ratio 0.96 (95% confidence interval 0.44 to 2.11), P=0.92 which favours the salicylic group). The freezing causes a blister to form around your wart, and the dead tissue sloughs off within a week or so. http://ovidsp.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?T=JS&PAGE=reference&D=coch&NEWS=N&AN=00075320-100000000-00530. The Cox proportional hazard assumption was tested globally by the correlation of Schoenfeld residuals and survival time (or ranked survival time) and separately for each covariate through the correlation of Schoenfeld scaled residuals and survival time (or ranked survival time). St. George's University of London; 2020. https://www.blackandbrownskin.co.uk/mindthegap. The EVerT collaborators (current and past) are Peter Arthur, Lucy Bellas, Beverly Brown, Lynne Bryan, Amanda Clark, Andrew Clarke, Michael Concannon, Beryl Cooling, Dawn Curruthers, Chris Davies, Gary Denby, Sean Dinneen, Diane Exley, Lisa Farndon, Simon Gazeley, Elizabeth Green, Stephanie Haughy, Julia Haswell, Christine Hearmon, Christine Howell, Arthur Kangombe, Jamil Karolia, Susan Kitchener, Phillip LeDune, Susan Lightfoot, Maria Madigan, Julie Mandehzadeh, Rina Miah, Caroline McIntosh, Christine Northern, Frances Price, Julie Poland, Ilan Rajap, Jayne Robinson, Julie Robinson, Raymond Skinner, Deborah Turner, Susan Walton, Linda White, Catriona Williams, who were members of the research team at each site and recruited participants to the study; Fiona Aitken and Helen Hill from the Medicines for Children Local Research Network; and Kate Biscomb and Kate Wyer from the Primary Care Research Network. NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. However, the only salicylic acid preparation we evaluated was at a 50% concentration, which is not the most commonly used. The primary analysis compared the clearance rate of all plantar warts at 12 weeks between the two randomised groups using a 2 test. More recently, a head to head trial compared salicylic acid and cryotherapy in a primary care setting in the Netherlands. Advertising revenue supports our not-for-profit mission. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Health. We also extended the primary outcome model to explore the effect of patient preferences by including preference and an interaction term between preferred treatment and randomised treatment. Here we report the results of a high quality trial evaluating two common treatments for plantar warts. Most plantar warts spontaneously disappear without treatment, but patients may seek treatment if the warts are painful or because they are being prevented from doing sports and other activities of daily living, There are many different ways to treat plantar warts, but the evidence base to inform clinical decision making is poor, There is no evidence to suggest that cryotherapy with liquid nitrogen was more clinically effective than patient self treatment with 50% salicylic acid in clearing plantar warts, Since cryotherapy is substantially more expensive than treatment with salicylic acid, this makes salicylic acid the more cost effective treatment. information highlighted below and resubmit the form. This multicentre, two arm, randomised, controlled, open trial was carried out in 13 centres in the United Kingdom and one in the Republic of Ireland. Find out about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, and Mayo Clinic patient and visitor updates. Accessed March 2, 2017. You may also want to list questions for your health care provider, such as: Your health care provider may ask you questions such as: If you're sure you have a plantar wart, you may try nonprescription remedies or alternative medicine approaches. In: Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin. Cutaneous cryosurgery for common skin conditions. information and will only use or disclose that information as set forth in our notice of The results did not change when the analysis was repeated but with adjustment for age, whether the wart had been treated previously, and type of plantar wart or for patients preferences at baseline. Do you have any condition or take any medication that has weakened your ability to fight disease (immune response)? If you are unable to import citations, please contact 6th ed. 2019; doi: 10.1097/DSS.0000000000001867. In: Taylor and Kelly's Dermatology for Skin of Color. Funding: This project was funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research, Health Technology Assessment Programme (project No 05/513/02) and will be published in full in the journal Health Technology Assessment. Cover the wart to help prevent it from spreading to other parts of the body or to other people. Conclusions Salicylic acid and the cryotherapy were equally effective for clearance of plantar warts. SC and KH were the trial coordinators, and GT was the trial support officer. Do you have diabetes or poor sensation in your feet? Data on adverse events were collected by the treating healthcare professional, by review of patients medical notes by the trial coordinator at site monitoring visits, or by review of participant follow-up questionnaires. At week 3, more patients were unhappy with salicylic acid than with cryotherapy (none), and more patients were very happy with cryotherapy than salicylic acid. Data pooled from five placebo controlled trials showed a cure rate of 117/160 (73%) compared with 78/162 (48%) in controls. This difference in cure rate could be attributed to different populations recruited to the study. In the cryotherapy group, there were two treatment related, non-serious adverse events in two participants. James WD, et al. A health care provider usually diagnoses a plantar wart by looking at it or cutting off the top layer with a scalpel and checking for dots. On advice from the trial steering committee, sites were advised that the first treatment should be a gentle freeze in order to ensure the participant could tolerate the treatment. Dermatologic Surgery. However, we chose to assess the primary outcome in our study at 12 weeks because we know many plantar warts spontaneously resolve, so the important clinical question is whether treating plantar warts makes them go sooner. 2014; doi: 10.1111/bjd.13310. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If the growth isn't a plantar wart, what tests do you need to do? Accessed Feb. 9, 2022. Accessed Feb. 10, 2022. NEW The Essential Diabetes Book - Mayo Clinic Press, Mayo Clinic on Incontinence - Mayo Clinic Press, NEW Mayo Clinic on Hearing and Balance - Mayo Clinic Press, FREE Mayo Clinic Diet Assessment - Mayo Clinic Press, Mayo Clinic Health Letter - FREE book - Mayo Clinic Press, Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Mayo Clinic School of Continuous Professional Development, Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education. These models are used to estimate the number of occurrences of an event when the event has Poisson variation with over-dispersion. Setting University podiatry school clinics, NHS podiatry clinics, and primary care in England, Scotland, and Ireland. This trial was a superiority study of cryotherapy compared with salicylic acid and was powered to show a 15% difference in effectiveness. CH oversaw the conduct of the analysis. The Cochrane systematic review found only one small trial directly comparing the effectiveness of a chemical treatment, salicylic acid, with cryotherapy in patients with warts on their feet alone.6 This poor quality study found a 58% cure rate among the patients allocated to cryotherapy, compared with 41% among those treated with salicylic acid. At week 1, more patients were happy with salicylic acid than cryotherapy but also more patients were very happy with cryotherapy than salicylic acid. Analyses were conducted in SAS version 9.2 (SAS Institute, NC, USA) and SPSS version 17.0.2 (SPSS) using two sided significance tests at the 5% significance level for the primary outcome measure and 1% significance level for secondary outcome measures. Your health care provider will likely suggest you apply the medicine regularly at home, followed by occasional office visits. Table 3 summarises the cryotherapy treatment details reported by the treating healthcare professional. The strengths of this study include adequate randomisation, allocation concealment, blinded outcome assessment, and intention to treat analysis, all of which minimises the risk of bias. Do you use a swimming pool or locker room places that can harbor wart-causing viruses? You may need to return to the clinic for repeat treatments every 2 to 3 weeks until the wart disappears. The writing team consisted of SC, KH, CH, ES, KT, and ARK, who drafted the report. A further strength is that this was a large pragmatic study that recruited patients from 14 centres across England, Scotland, and Ireland from podiatry clinics, general practices, and from the community. Skin conditions in the UK: a health care needs assessment, Cryotherapy versus salicylic acid for the treatment of plantar warts (verrucae): a randomised controlled trial, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode, The Walcote Practice, Private GP: A GP Opportunity With A Difference Private Salaried GP, Park Green Surgery, Church View Health Centre: Salaried GP, Hillcrest Surgery (Bath): General Practitioner, Womens, childrens & adolescents health. In order to give 80% power (5% two sided significance) to show a difference in cure rates of 70% for salicylic acid versus 85% for cryotherapy at 12 weeks, a sample size of 120 patients in each treatment group was required, or 133 patients in each group after allowing for 10% attrition (266 patients in total). Both participants developed a blister that was larger than expected in routine practice. The plaster was then sealed into position. This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. British Association of Dermatologists' guidelines for the management of cutaneous warts. Our overall cure rate was 14% (32/229), whereas cure rates in the earlier studies ranged from about 30%9 to 68%,11 at least twice the rate we observed. Bring a list of all medications you take regularly including nonprescription medications and dietary supplements and the daily dosage of each. This content does not have an English version. (Values are numbers (percentages) unless stated otherwise). Patient self treatment with 50% salicylic acid (Verrugon) daily up to a maximum of eight weeks. A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. Objective To compare the clinical effectiveness of cryotherapy versus salicylic acid for the treatment of plantar warts. Participants 240 patients aged 12 years and over, with a plantar wart that in the opinion of the healthcare professional was suitable for treatment with both cryotherapy and salicylic acid. Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: SC, KH, SJ, GT, KT, MC, FH, NM, and DT received proportions of their salaries from the Health Technology Assessment grant in order to conduct the study; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. Accessed Feb. 10, 2022. Of these, one event (a ruptured Achilles tendon requiring hospitalisation) was classed as serious and unrelated to the trial treatment (salicylic acid). DT and IW were chief investigators and oversaw the study. ES designed and undertook the economic analysis. It is therefore possible that cryotherapy is a superior treatment against lower concentrations of salicylic acid. Gill Worthy, SJ, and CH designed the clinical analysis. Topical treatments for cutaneous warts. Firstly, our sample size was powered to show a 15% difference in effectiveness, with cure rates of 70% for the salicylic acid treatment and 85% for the cryotherapy. Sterling JC, et al. A total of 28 adverse events were reported in 19 participants. the unsubscribe link in the e-mail. But talk with your health care provider before trying self-care treatments if you have: If pressure on the wart causes pain, try wearing well-cushioned shoes, such as athletic shoes that evenly support the sole and relieve some of the pressure.