CURING VENEREAL WARTS

Report #6723 2/5/96

Venereal warts are the most-common venereal disease in the United States today, affecting between 25 to 50% of sexually-active polygamous men and women.

Venereal warts can appear as bumps on the genitals or rectum or they can only be seen with a magnifying glass after they turn white from vinegar placed on the skin. Warts in the rectum and vagina are extremely difficult to eradicate. Many doctors treat venereal warts by applying an irritating solution called podophyllin, but the warts frequently return and they can cause cervical and penile cancers. Two recent reports show that it is possible to cure venereal warts with either surgical destruction and interferon injections into the warts (1-6) or by taking interferon injections three times a week for 8 weeks along with 80 mg per day of the acne drug, Accutane (7).

Doctors first dip gauze pads in vinegar, wrap them around the suspected area, cover the gauze with saran wrap and after ten minutes, use a magnifying glass to look for white dots which can be the warts. The doctor then marks each wart with a special marking pencil and anesthetizes each area by injecting xylocaine. All white dots are not necessarily warts, so doctors often have to remove a piece of the wart and send it to a pathologist for analysis. The doctor then burns a wide area around the warts with a special electrocautery and then injects freshly-mixed gamma interferon into the base of each wart. Several months later, doctors apply vinegar pads again to see if any warts remain. Venereal warts are usually sexually transmitted. Some persist and cause cancer.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News