Medical Laser Blog - Fotona Straight Talk for the Physician

Fotona Laser Treatments Effective for Warts

This is an aesthetic/cosmetic laser blog and here we are talking about warts…not commonly thought of as a mainstream cosmetic procedure.  But warts are unsightly and people want them gone!  

Now you might be thinking “Gee, I could go to my primary care doctor and get it treated and it’ll be paid for by insurance, so why would anyone want a wart treated by an aesthetic laser?”  

Well, the answer to that is, quite simply, that the standard treatments for warts aren’t very good!  You can put some kind of plaster, potion or lotion on it – and you put it on repeatedly and repeatedly – and often times it takes weeks and weeks, if not months and months to go away.  You can have it frozen.  The freezing process is associated with a tremendous amount of pain, swelling and discomfort.  You can have it burned off, hyfrecated, etc., but the Fotona laser provides another unique opportunity that has a completely different side effect profile.  

The laser is able to provide treatment that has only minimal post-procedural discomfort.  As an example, many of you readers know that my wife and I live in rural Minnesota.  We live in basketball country.  Our high school is sort of an area basketball powerhouse - particularly the women’s teams, who have been to the state tournament multiple, multiple times.  The men’s teams have been many times as well – and in fact, they just won the state title in their division.  One of the star basketball athletes came to our office just before the last few games of the season, just before play-offs and state tournament time, with about 25% of the ball of her dominant foot covered with warts.  Now normally, treating that would have taken her out of the games for the rest of the season.  She would have been sitting on the bench – maybe even with her foot up because of discomfort due to all that raw tissue.

We were able to treat her warts with the Nd:YAG laser.  You hit them pretty hard…you use pretty high fluences.  It gets your undivided attention when you hit the wart, but post-procedurally, this young woman was able to put her sock and basketball shoe back on and run back out onto the court and straight into practice.  She didn’t miss a game and they went to the tournament finals.

So, unlike other treatments for warts, which are not only painful when they’re being done, but they’re painful post-procedurally, the Nd:YAG can offer an alternative with much less downtime for the patient in terms of being active – especially when dealing with plantar warts.  Another nice thing about treating warts with the laser is that many times these are they types of warts that are close to the nail bed (particularly on fingers).  Those can be dangerous areas to attempt treating because you can alter the nail matrix and cause permanent disfigurement to the nail.  And while I’m not going to tell you you’re never going to see disfigurement to the nail, it’s my experience that you have LESS likelihood of disfigurement to the nail when using laser over electrodessication or cryo.  

One more thing that we use our Fotona Lasers to treat commonly, and treat well, are warts.  And again, LOTS of people have warts.  They don’t like them.  We find that the laser treats them very effectively and our patients are extremely happy with the therapy.

Wart Treatments: Not Exactly Glamorous But a Reality of Life.

Warts – they’re not exactly glamorous, but a reality of life.  Most treatments for warts are only marginally better than having the wart.  Freezing is painful during and for days after the treatment.  Chemicals are inconvenient and take weeks to months to treat and immunotherapy can be quite inflammatory and uncomfortable.  In our office, and with our Fotona wart removal laser treatment, we treat warts in 1 or 2 sessions with some discomfort during the treatment but minimal after treatment.  In fact many of our teenage patients will go back to basketball practice (or whatever) immediately after treatment.

Unlike most wart treatments, ours are non-ablative using the Nd:YAG laser.  We use a relatively high fluence to heat the blood supply and kill the virus.  The treatment shows results within 24 to 48 hours and generally requires only one treatment.  On the occasional patient that needs a second, the discomfort is considerably less due to the partial effect of the first treatment.  We have treated many resistant cases.  It is hard for a virus to become resistant to heat, so we see few failures.

Our community is known for its women’s high school basketball team.  Several years back, one of the star players had a large cluster of plantar warts that would not go away with conventional therapies.  She came to our office only days before the state tournament, limping.  We were able to treat her with great success, no down time and a state title!

Fast, efficient and no down time…that is laser treatment of warts with the Fotona Nd:YAG laser.