REVIEW ARTICLE
Wart Immunotherapies: A Short Review
Ryan S. Sefcik1, Craig G. Burkhart2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 11
First Page: 30
Last Page: 34
Publisher ID: TODJ-11-30
DOI: 10.2174/1874372201711010030
Article History:
Received Date: 02/05/2017Revision Received Date: 27/05/2017
Acceptance Date: 10/08/2017
Electronic publication date: 25/08/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objective:
To review the efficacy and costs of various contact immunotherapies, contact allergens, intralesional immunotherapies, and intralesional cytotoxic agents for the treatment of recalcitrant warts.
Background:
Cutaneous warts are common viral skin lesions caused by human papillomavirus that can be challenging to treat and frustrating for physicians and patients. Although several treatment options exist, there is no single treatment that can ensure a complete response with lack of lesion recurrence. Immunotherapies for recalcitrant warts present as a cost-effective, efficient therapy option for patients. Intralesional approaches have the added benefit of affecting warts at locations distant to the target location by inducing a systemic T-cell mediated response in the body.
Results:
Various contact immunotherapies, contact allergens, intralesional immunotherapies, and intralesional cytotoxic agents have shown to be effective in treating warts. The costs of each treatment varies drastically from around $10 US to over $1000 US to achieve a complete response. Several antigens were found to be both efficacious and cost effective.
Conclusion:
Although efficacy of several antigens has been confirmed by randomized studies, more randomized comparative studies will need to be performed in order to determine the best antigen and correct standardized doses for the treatment of warts in individual patients. It is important to note that individual response to antigen type and dose may vary among patients. Therefore, further studies may play an important role in the use of immunotherapies in a clinical setting.