ABSTRACT
References A surgical approach to wart treatment seems untenable because the disease is infectious by nature, and affects both abnormal and normal appearing epithelium. Surgical treatments are aimed at destruction or removal of visually infected tissues, with or without a healthy appearing peripheral margin. This chapter discusses cold blade excision of warts, as well as electrosurgery. Some authors noticed a spontaneous resolution of untreated smaller satellite warts after the surgical excision of a predominating wart.1 One can speculate that a release of antigenic wart material after surgery of a wart stimulates an immune response. This phenomenon is neither constant nor specific to surgical treatment, and it is not well understood. Alternatively, decreasing viral load by debulking a wart may lead to more effective host defences. Finally, debulking may permit more effective treatment by another modality used in combination with surgery.
