Surgical Wart Removal

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As with most ailments, milder treatments are usually sought for wart removal before surgery is considered. There are many reasons for this approach, a couple being that surgery, no matter how small, always carries some risks, and that where an over the counter cream can achieve great results the surgical route is unnecessary. That being said, there are many instances where alternative treatments like non-prescription or even prescription wart removal agents have failed to achieve the complete and effective removal of warts. In these cases surgery actually presents a great opportunity to be rid of potentially embarrassing warts.

What is surgical wart removal?

‘Surgery’ is quite a broad term, and in the context of wart removal in this article the word refers to the technique of surgical curettage. Curettage is a fancy word for a simple procedure practiced for many years in different forms, it is simply the excision of a wart by means of specialist tools in the hands of an able surgeon. It is often performed in conjunction with electrosurgery which can help complete the removal of larger warts for instance.

How is surgical wart removal done?

The procedure around the curettage of warts is, as mentioned above, quite simple. A day case procedure room is usually arranged, which is a sterile environment kept free of infection for small same day procedures like wart removal. A surgeon will first treat the area around your warts with a local anaesthetic, which is a numbing agent designed to alleviate the pain of surgery and allow the surgeon the time needed for a skilled and effective procedure.

A sharp knife called a scalpel or a specialised spoon shaped tool are used by the surgeon to cut off the wart, and then electrosurgery might be performed to remove any remaining infected wart cells. Electrosurgery utilises a small probe with an electric current which heats up the wart and kills off any remaining cells. This makes it less likely for the wart to recur provided hygiene and other preventative measures are observed after the surgery.

Advantages of surgical wart removal

Surgical wart removal is a great choice for many people whose warts are resistant to creams and other over the counter therapies. The procedure doesn’t require repeat sessions like cryosurgery or laser therapy, and can be performed with great success on a number of different types of warts with the exception of genital and most facial warts.

Disadvantages of surgical wart removal

Surgical curettage of warts carries a risk of scarring which can put a lot of people off. More are discomfited by the idea of any kind of surgery at all, an obstacle which other procedures don’t face. Similarly surgical wart removal isn’t the best option where there are large clusters of warts covering a large surface area of skin like flat warts.

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