A plantar wart develops on the foot, often on the sole. It is caused by a virus called HPV, or human papillomavirus, which can enter the foot through cracks or wounds. Warts are not serious, and often require no treatment. However, if you find them particularly painful or unsightly, you can see a podiatrist about a treatment for wart removal.
Freezing
In cryotherapy, the wart is frozen with a cold solution such as sodium nitride. This solution freezes and kills the virus that caused the wart. Within a few days, the wart will turn black in color, and then fall off. According to the American College of Foot and Ankle Orthopedics and Medicine (ACFAOM), this is often a doctor's favorite method of treatment, as it causes very little pain or damage to healthy tissue near the wart. The only downside to the treatment is that there are times when the wart is so deep that cryotherapy does not freeze the virus.
Surgery
Your doctor may recommend a surgical procedure to remove the wart. Laser surgery is performed in the doctor's office and local anesthesia is used. Laser surgery is much more effective than cryotherapy, and does not cause a lot of physical scarring like some other surgical methods do.
One of those other forms of surgical removal is called cutterage. Cutterage, which uses an electric needle to "cut away" the wart, is often used when there are several warts in a localized area. A local anesthetic will be administered. The ACFAOM states that cutterage can be quite painful and leave scars, but it is also one of the most effective means of permanent wart removal.
Application Treatments
If the wart does not appear to be too deep, the podiatrist may simply apply a topical acid treatment to the wart. Some acids used are salicylic acid and dichloroacetic acid, and they kill off the skin cells that are affected by the virus, which gives healthy cells a chance to replace them. The downside to this type of treatment is that it can take several applications and several weeks for the wart to disappear. The Foot Center of Manhattan notes that with this type of treatment you will be given a prescription for the acid treatment, and your podiatrist or doctor will oversee your wart removal at check-up visits.
Another treatment that involves direct application of a substance is injection. Rather than being a topical treatment, with injection the podiatrist injects a drug directly into the wart. This drug treatment, which is often bleomycin or interferon-alpha, is very successful. Injection of the wart is referred to as immunotherapy, because the drug causes the immune system to fight off the wart virus.
