One day, a friend came to ask Xiaoliang that he had an induration on his hand, but it was neither painful nor itchy, and wanted to know what it was.
Actually, the induration on this lady’s hand is common wart.
Common warts are caused by HPV infection and can appear anywhere on the body, but are more common on the hands.
In addition to the soy-sized, skin-colored nodules seen in the picture, common warts can be larger, darker nodules.
Common warts are tough in texture, most people are painless and not itchy, some people may be accompanied by mild pain or itching, and if combined with wart damage and infection, it will aggravate ill.
Although benign, it is contagious, and is often spread through direct or indirect contact with an infectious agent.
Especially the self-propagation caused by scratching and other reasons, the longer and more, the more headache.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
Then why does it grow like this?
Common warts are mainly caused by the following factors:
Direct or indirect contact with infected objects, such as sharing household items such as towels with an infected person;
Immunity weakened, especially people with weakened immunity such as organ transplantation, leukemia, lupus erythematosus, etc., are more likely to be infected under the same exposure opportunity;
Skin trauma combined with contact with infectious substances, such as a friend who already has a common wart scratching his skin, is also a major way of infection.
If you want to prevent common warts, you can also take precautions against the above three points~
There is currently no specific antiviral therapy for common warts, and existing strategies focus on destroying the wart, stimulating local or systemic immune responses, and regulating local normal skin growth.
Topical use
Salicylic acid ointment, 5-fluorouracil ointment are effective treatments for common warts. Among them, salicylic acid ointment mainly plays the role of exfoliation of wart keratin.
5-fluorouracil ointment can inhibit and destroy excessively proliferating cells, which can cause local hyperpigmentation, use with caution on the face and neck.
In addition, the efficacy of topical medicines has certain limitations. If the wart volume is too large or too thick, the effect of topical medicines may not be good. It is recommended to choose other treatments or treatments under the guidance of a professional doctor. adjunct to other treatments.
The onset of topical drugs is relatively slow. This is due to the tough texture of the common wart and the relatively hard skin surface.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
Intralesional injection
The effect of external medicine is not good, what should I do if I don’t see obvious effect after taking it for 1-2 months?
Intralesional injection! Injecting the drug directly into the wart couldn’t be more tactful.
At present, Pingyangmycin is commonly used in the clinical injection of warts once a week, especially for those stubborn common warts.
Physical Therapy
The above are all medicinal chemical attacks, and then let’s talk about the physical output.
Liquid nitrogen freezing, microwave, electrocautery, etc. are all more rapid treatment methods, which can make the wart necrosis, fall off or directly burn the wart in a short time. organization.
Suitable for patients with few, small, and shallow warts.
Surgery
Physical therapy also requires a recovery period. If you want to speed up, you can also choose surgery.
Resect the wart directly, and use external drugs or other therapies to prevent recurrence after excision. It is simple, effective and immediate!
In order to avoid scarring, it is generally not used for warts on the face and neck, and not everyone is suitable for surgery (such as the area of warts is too large, the number of warts is too large, etc.), and it is absolutely prohibited. If you see this article, you cut it out by yourself!
Photodynamic
The skin lesions are generalized, easy to repeat, and conventional drug and surgical treatment is not effective. Photodynamic therapy can also be considered Oh~
Here I have to mention some “earth methods”: “tie the pimple with a rope”, “external application of incense ash”, “vinegar batter paste”, etc., all of which have no therapeutic effect Yeah.
Write at the end
When it comes to HPV, do you think “cervical cancer” first? There are also small partners who have questions: “I got common warts because I didn’t get the HPV vaccine?”
No, there is a huge family of HPV viruses, some of which are associated with cervical cancer and some with our common common warts, plantar warts and more.
Common warts and plantar warts currently have very effective treatments, so don’t worry too much~
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
References
[1] Zhang Xuejun, Zheng Jie. Dermatology. The 9th edition [M]. People’s Health Publishing House, 2018.
[2] Grover S, Grewal R S. Fitzpatrick’s Dermatology in General Medicine[M]. McGraw-Hill, Health Professions Division, 2008.
[3]Zhao Bian. Chinese Clinical Dermatology[M]. Jiangsu Science and Technology Press, 2010.
*The content of this article is for the popularization of health knowledge and cannot be used as a specific diagnosis and treatment suggestion, nor can it replace the face-to-face consultation of a licensed physician, and is for reference only.
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