A Two-week Interval Is Better Than a Three-week Interval for Reducing the Recurrence Rate of Hand-foot Viral Warts after Cryotherapy: A Retrospective Review of 560 Hand-foot Viral Warts Patients

Abstract

Background: Viral warts are a common infectious disease and liquid nitrogen cryotherapy is one of the most common methods for treatment of these warts. Hand-foot viral warts frequently recur and reduce quality of life as well. Objective: To find the ideal treatment interval between cryotherapy sessions that can influence not only the cure rate but also the recurrence rate for hand-foot viral warts. Methods: A retrospective study was designed to compare a 2 week interval and a 3 week interval between cryotherapy sessions on hand-foot viral warts with respect to cure rate, recurrence rate, treatment number, duration of treatment, mean time to recurrence and adverse events. Results: A total of 560 patients were enrolled. The overall cure rate was 75.7% and the recurrence rate was 19.6%. The mean time to recurrence was 7.8 months (range 1∼26 months). For the 2-week and 3-week groups, cure rates were, respectively, 76.6% (196) and 75.0% (228); recurrence rates were 13.3% (26) and 25.0% (57). The mean time to recurrence was 9.8 months and 6.9 months, respectively. Adverse events were not statistically different. Conclusion: We suggested that 2-week cryotherapy is optimal not only because of the rapid cure but also because of the lower recurrence rate and similar adverse events. (Ann Dermatol 23(1) 53∼60, 2011)

Real‐life treatment of cutaneous warts with cantharidin podophyllin salicylic acid solution

“…Still, costs for treatment of warts could be greatly reduced, as only limited treatment sessions (median number of 3) are needed to achieve complete resolution of warts in children compared to cryotherapy. In addition, the recurrences reported for CPS1 solution (10.6 and 19.4% for children and adults, respectively) are roughly lower or comparable to other treatments of cutaneous warts with duct tape (75%), cryotherapy (13.3–25%), 5% 5‐fluorouracil (13–15%), and pulsed dye laser (0–36%; Dhar, Rashid, Islam, & Bhuiyan, ; Gladsjo et al, ; Salk et al, ; Veitch, Kravvas, & Al‐Niaimi, ; Wenner et al, ; Youn, Kwon, Park, Kim, & Kim, ). Two studies reported no recurrences after treatment of cutaneous warts with CPS2 solution (Table ) (Becerro de Bengoa Vallejo et al, ; Kaçar et al, ).…”

Cryotherapy vs trichloroacetic acid 90% in treatment of common warts

“…Similarly, Khaled et al observed higher cure rate among patients with hand warts than those with foot warts. On the contrary, Youn et al reported better results among foot warts than hand warts.…”

British Association of Dermatologists' guidelines for the management of cutaneous warts 2014

“…[34][35][36][37] However, the cure rates after 6 months are often similar, suggesting that clearance may in fact depend on the total number of treatments given. Only one randomized trial has explored the total number of treatments, and even this trial was not ideally designed to answer this question.…”