Comparing Pulsed-dye Laser with Cryotherapy in the Treatment of Common Warts

Introduction: no modality has been identified as the treatment of chice for treating common warts. cryothearpy and pulsed-dye laser (pdl) are among common modalities for treating these lesions.the aim of this study was to compare pulsed dye laser with cryotherapy in terms of efficacy and complications.matherial & methods: of a total of 46 patients enrolled in this study, 7 patients withdrew the study, 20 patients underwent cryotherapy and 19 patients underwent pdl. patients underwent a maximum of 4 therapeutic sessions at 3-week intervals in both groups. they were assessed for the remission rate (complete and partial), side effects and recurrence rate in each session and 1 month after termination of the treatments. results: at the end of the study complete remission was achieved in 37.8% of patients in cryotherapy group and in 52.3% of patients in pdl group. this difference wasn't statistically significant (p=0.229), though after first and second sessions of treatment complete and excellent partial remission occurred more in pdl group with significant difference (p=0.007 and p=0.021). pain and bulla formation occurred statistically higher in cryotherapy group (p=0.002 and p=0.001). other complications were rare in both groups.conclusion: in terms of efficacy, we couldn't demonstrate the superiority of pulsed-dye laser therapy to cryotherapy in treating common warts. both methods were safe for long-term complications but pdl was much safer for short-term complications