Medical Dermatology - Verruca / Warts

Warts are a common, frustrating, and confusing problem for parents and children. Warts are skin lesions caused by the human papillomavirus and occur in almost fifty percent of children at some time. The common wart is a small, hard, rough bump that usually occurs on the hands and fingers. Other types of warts include genital warts, molluscum contagiosum, flat warts and plantar warts.

Although most warts do typically go away on their own and may not require treatment, some do become painful, bothersome, rapidly spread, or don’t go away, even after several years, and do need to be treated. The most common treatments that your doctor will likely try include freezing the warts with liquid nitrogen, which is called cryotherapy, or applying cantharidin to the warts. Both treatments should cause some blistering of the wart, causing it to come off, although multiple treatments are often necessary. The cantharidin treatments have the benefit of usually being painless, although it can trigger a large, painful blister later that day.