Pulsed dye laser treatment for viral warts: A study of 120 patients

Abstract

A prospective, non-blinded, non-randomized study on 120 wart patients treated with pulsed dye laser was performed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pulsed dye laser treatment for viral warts and to demonstrate the proper application and effective technique of this method. The overall clearance rate was 49.5%. The clearance rates of flat warts, periungual warts, plantar warts and common warts were 67.6%, 51.1%, 47.6% and 44.3%, respectively. Overall, the response rates of pediatric warts, recalcitrant warts and old warts were superior to those of adult warts, simple warts and non-old warts, respectively; however, those trends were not statistically significant. We concluded that pulsed dye laser treatment is a safe, tolerable and relatively effective treatment method for viral warts. Pulsed dye laser treatment may be a more efficacious method for flat warts and recalcitrant periungual warts, and it can be an effective modality for newly-developed warts. The highest clearance rate was noted at a fluence of 9.5 J/cm2 (P < or = 0.05) and it is recommended that practitioners perform pulsed dye laser treatments for viral warts at the fluences of 9.0-9.5 J/cm2. A replacement of pulsed dye laser treatment should be considered unless prominent improvement is observed after three treatment sessions.

Role of oral zinc sulphate in warts-a placebo controlled,single-blinded study

“…Common therapeutic modalities for viral warts include cryotherapy, keratolytics, topical immunotherapy with contact sensitizer, oral cimetidine, antimitotic agents, carbon dioxide laser, electrosurgery, photodynamic therapy, intralesional injection of antigens and topical immune response modifiers. None of these modalities is universally effective [8]. Zinc is an important element that is found in every cell in the body.…”

Pulsed Dye Laser Treatment for Recalcitrant Viral Warts: Auto-Simultaneous Laser Treatment

“…The site of warts was also the factor influencing the response rate. Park HS et al reported the clearance rate of plantar warts as 47.6%, which was interior to that of flat warts and periungual warts 5) .…”

Paring and intense pulsed light versus paring alone for recalcitrant hand and foot warts: A randomized clinical trial with blinded outcome evaluation

“…Furthermore, we assessed the treatment efficacy on recalcitrant warts in this study, which have an expected lower cure rate than simple warts. Several uncontrolled studies have found PDL able to clear 48-93% of simple and/or recalcitrant warts at various locations, and two studies have reported of low cure rates at 0% and 6.5% of warts [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]15,17,18]. Cure rates observed in these non-randomized, non-controlled studies do not account for the spontaneous resolution of warts and the high risk of bias makes interpretation and validity of these outcomes uncertain.…”

“…Newer, non-destructive interventions such as the pulsed dye laser (PDL) and intense pulsed light (IPL) have been suggested for treatment of recalcitrant warts [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. The mechanism of action is assumed to be selective destruction of superficially papillary capillaries of the wart as well as thermal injury of the heat-sensitive HPV [5].…”