Warts

What are warts?

Warts are contagious, non-cancerous skin growths caused by viruses that infect the top layer of your skin. Usually skin-colored and rough to the touch, but sometimes dark, smooth, and flat, warts are spread by direct or indirect contact.

Is there more than one type of wart?

There are several types of warts. These include:

Common warts

Common warts tend to feel like rough bumps and grow on the backs of the hands, around the nails, and on the fingers. Most often, people develop common warts on broken skin, like where you’ve been picking at a hangnail.

Sometimes, common warts feature black dots that look like seeds.

Plantar warts

Also known as foot warts, plantar warts most often grow on the plantar surface, or the soles, of the feet. They can grow individually or in clusters. Like common warts, they can feature black dots. Unlike common warts, they frequently grow inward due to pressure from walking. In this case, they may hurt like a pebble in your shoe.

Filiform warts

Filiform warts are fast-growing warts that tend to grow on the face around the eyes, nose, and mouth. They’re named filiform warts because of their long, thread-like appearance.

Flat warts

Finally, flat warts are smaller, smoother warts that can grow anywhere in large numbers, from 20 to 100 at once. Women usually develop flat warts on their legs, while men often get them in their beard area, and children usually get them on the face.

Who gets warts?

Anyone can develop a wart, but some people are more likely to develop warts than others. These people include:  

• People who bite their nails
• People who pick at their hangnails
• Children and teens
• People with weakened immune systems

The reason that children and teens tend to get warts more often than adults is because of how warts spread easiest: through touch and on broken skin.

How do you treat warts?

Though warts often resolve without treatment in children, if they’re bothersome or painful, Premier Dermatology offers a variety of wart treatments. These include:

• Cryosurgery, or freezing off
• Electrosurgery, or burning off
• Curettage, or scraping off the wart with a special tool
• Cantharidin, a topical treatment that creates a blister under the wart so the wart dies
• Candida injections

Some warts are especially stubborn and may require:

• Excision
• Injections with bleomycin, an anti-cancer drug

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