Cryotherapy Vs. LP

Aug 31, 2023

Feb 15, 2023

The following is a summary of "Long-pulsed neodymium-doped yttrium-aluminum-garnet laser versus cryotherapy for the treatment of cutaneous warts: A randomized controlled trial," published in the December 2022 issue of Dermatology by Liu, et al.

The long-pulsed neodymium-doped yttrium-aluminum-garnet (LP-Nd:YAG) laser has demonstrated positive treatment benefits on warts in observational studies. For a study, researchers sought to assess whether cryotherapy or LP-Nd:YAG laser treating cutaneous warts was preferable.

150 adult wart patients were randomized evenly to undergo laser or cryotherapy every three to four weeks, for a maximum of four sessions, in the research. The main results were the cure rates at 16 weeks and 6 months; the secondary results were the wart clearance time and unfavorable treatment effects.

At 16 weeks (54.1% vs. 46.7%, respectively) and 6 months (59.5% vs. 57.3%, respectively), there was no difference between the cure rates for laser and cryotherapy. However, laser treatment proved to be more effective than cryotherapy in terms of speeding up the time to wart clearance—up to 16 weeks and 6 months, respectively (P =.04 and.08). In 3 subgroups of resistant warts caused by the human papillomavirus 2/27/57, post hoc analysis revealed a substantially better cure rate for laser treatment compared to cryotherapy, but not in the opposite subgroups. Less severe side effects came with laser.

Cryotherapy and LP-Nd:YAG laser therapy both had equal overall therapeutic outcomes; however, laser therapy may be more efficient for very resistant warts and may result in faster wart elimination.

Reference: jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(20)32686-4/fulltext