Duct tape doesn't cure warts in adults: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Covering up a wart with transparent duct tape or moleskin, commonly referred to as occlusion therapy, hardly ever cures warts in adults, according to the results of a new study. Even when a treated wart resolves, it usually recurs within months, the investigators report.

Since 1978, several studies have described using duct tape occlusion to successfully treat warts in children and young adults. However, many dermatologists did not take these poorly controlled experiments seriously.

Since duct tape is an inexpensive, nontraumatic way to treat warts, Dr. Rachel Wenner, from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and her associates decided to try it on adult patients and compare the results with those achieved with moleskin occlusion. Their findings appear in the Archives of Dermatology.

So patients wouldn't know which treatment they received, the researchers used moleskin alone (Dr. Scholl's Moleskin Plus) on 46 patients, and duct tape (Scotch Transparent Duct Tape) applied to the adhesive side of moleskin for 44 patients. Small pads were cut out that would cover each patient's largest "target" wart.

The wart was first pared with a scalpel blade and the pad was applied. Patients were allowed to use reinforcing tape to hold the pad in place. Their instructions were to wear a pad for 7 days, remove it for 1 night, then soak the wart and lightly scrape it with an emery board the next morning before reapplying another pad.

The subjects' average age was 54 years, the average number of warts was 1.4 per person, and the average wart diameter was 5.3 mm. About two thirds of the subjects had tried other treatments, including liquid nitrogen and salicylic acid. Most had had warts for years or even decades.

After 2 months, there were no significant difference between the two groups; the wart cleared up in 21 percent in the duct tape group and 22 percent in the moleskin group. However, of the 17 warts that disappeared, 9 returned within 6 months.

Wenner's group notes previous studies that reported occlusion therapy was successful in most patients, the trial included children, not adults. The investigators also point out that warts tend to resolve spontaneously within a couple of years in children, whereas adults with warts almost always have them for the rest of their lives.

SOURCE: Archives of Dermatology, March 2007.