The Efficacy of Duct Tape vs. Cryotherapy in the Treatment of Verruca (Wart)

by Marc Mitnick DPM

"Can warts really be removed with duct tape?" One of the unusual, innovative and long-forgotten drugs noted in this journal of dermatology, was the use of duct tape to treat warts, which was finally tested. There are all kinds of conventional therapies from acids to cryosurgery and lasers, but most of them are expensive, painful, or both. While the simple application of duct tape is neither - and may even be more effective than trying to freeze warts.

Some doctors praised the study, noting that they used adhesive tape for decades as a painless but effective treatment, compared to surgery and other destructive treatments. The only downside is that your patients may think you're nerdy, but once it works, they will appreciate your wise choice to minimize their discomfort.



Other doctors were not so amused. Here they spend money for all this modern equipment and finally comes the tape? Research such as "may damage the reputation of cryosurgery," arguing that the 10-second application of liquid nitrogen, which they used in the study is too short, so this was an unfair comparison.



And obviously you really have to go in and be frozen, until the patient gets a blister reaction. And yes, it hurts, but not too much,


Eighty-five percent of patients with warts were cured without pain or tissue damage using duct tape, while aggressive cryotherapy may require lidocaine injection, nerve blockages to pass with a roar through cryotherapy and can cause permanent tissue damage. You may find yourself with these huge necrotic frostbite lesions. I mean, in a sense, tissue damage is the root cause of freezing warts, but in the end you can cause these deep burns or tear your tendons, which can cause permanent damage or large scars in rare cases. Only the psychological stress of having to go back for this painful procedure may, ironically, impair our ability to fight the wart virus.



And so, even if the effectiveness of the tape has been shown to be equivalent to that of cryotherapy, it will be better; and it really turns out that duct tape is even more effective may actually be the most effective.



Compared to 10 other wart treatments ,duct tape defeats them all in terms of efficiency and also in terms of price - cheaper than anything, except for the NPN option, which means "Do nothing". Compared to the most cost-effective prescribed treatments available, the tape, which means the tape from the stand, is 10 times cheaper. This is an unusual and welcome event in healthcare when a simple treatment has been shown to be equally effective on a cheap, tolerable and safe alternative therapy.



But wait. If you look at Cochrane's latest review, which is the gold standard of science based on scientific evidence, they recognize that cryotherapy is not as convenient, it is more painful and more expensive. But while in the previous review, they were really excited about the effectiveness of the tape, in two subsequent studies the tape appeared to have completely failed. So, should we give up tape for the treatment of warts or is there another side to the story?



Duct tape for warts is certainly something worth trying before you see a doctor.