Can genital warts be treated?

Genital warts (sometimes called condylomata acuminata or venereal warts) are single or multiple bumps that appear in the genital areas of men and women including the vagina, cervix, penis, and rectum. Like warts that appear on other areas of your skin, genital warts are caused by a virus called HPV.
HPV is the virus that causes common warts and genital warts. The virus infects the top layers of your skin. Many people infected with HPV have no symptoms and no warts, but they are still contagious.

Can genital warts be treated?
Yes. Genital warts must be treated by your doctor. Do not try to treat the warts yourself.

The warts can be removed, but the viral infection itself can't be cured. The virus goes on living inside your skin. This is why the warts often return after they have been removed. You may need to have them removed more than once.

Is there a cure or treatment for external genital warts?

There is no cure or treatment that can eradicate HPV infection, so the only currently possible treatment is to remove the lesions caused by the virus. Unfortunately, even removal of the warts does not necessarily prevent the spread of the virus, and genital warts frequently recur. None of the available treatment options is ideal or clearly superior to others.

A treatment that can be administered by the patient is a 0.5% solution or gel of podofilox (Condylox). The medication is applied to the warts twice per day for 3 days followed by 4 days without treatment. Treatment should be continued up to 3-4 weeks or until the lesions are gone. Podofilox may also be applied every other day for a total of three weeks.
Alternatively, a 5% cream of imiquimod (Aldara, a substance that stimulates the body's production of cytokines, chemicals that direct and strengthen the immune response) is likewise applied by the patient three times a week at bedtime, and then washed off with mild soap and water 6-10 hours later. The applications are repeated for up to 16 weeks or until the lesions are gone.
Only an experienced physician can perform some of the treatments for genital warts. These include, for example, placing a small amount of a 10%-25% solution of podophyllin resin on the lesions, and then, after a period of hours, washing off the podophyllin. The treatments are repeated weekly until the genital warts are gone.
An 80%-90% solution of trichloroacetic acid (TCA) or bichloracetic acid (BCA) can also be applied weekly by a physician to the lesions. Injection of 5-flurouracil epinephrine gel into the lesions has also been shown to be effective in treating genital warts.
Interferon alpha, a substance that stimulates the body's immune response, has also been used in the treatment of genital warts. Treatment regimens involve injections of interferon into the lesionevery other day over a period of 8 to 12 weeks.

Alternative methods include cryotherapy (freezing the genital warts with liquid nitrogen) every 1 to 2 weeks, surgical removal of the lesions, or laser surgery. Laser surgery and surgical excision both require a local or general anesthetic, depending upon the extent of the lesions.

CAN GENITAL WARTS BE CURED AT HOME

HPV is the virus that causes common warts and genital warts. The virus infects the top layers of your skin. Many people infected with HPV have no symptoms and no warts, but they are still contagious.


CAN GENITAL WARTS BE "CURED"?

Genital warts can be treated, and probably cured in some cases. A “cure” means that the virus is gone. There is no reliable way to determine whether or not the HPV virus is gone. Treatments are effective at getting rid of the visible warts, but the virus may persist in the skin, and cause new warts to develop months or years later.

Wash your hands thoroughly with antibacterial soap and warm water, then wash the area affected by the warts. Dry with a clean towel.

Dampen a cotton ball or a piece of cotton gauze with some apple cider vinegar. The cotton should be thoroughly wet, but not dripping.

Place the vinegar-soaked cotton ball on the wart, making sure it is completely covered. Secure the cotton with a piece of medical tape and allow it to sit overnight. It is normal to experience some pain after applying apple cider vinegar to a wart. If you have multiple warts, you can apply vinegar-soaked cotton to all of them at once or choose to treat them at separate times.

Remove the cotton and wash the area thoroughly using antibacterial soap and warm water. Reapply vinegar-soaked cotton each night until the wart is completely gone.

How to treat Genital Warts

If you have genital warts, you'll be relieved to know that outbreaks are treatable. The warts are caused by HPV (human papilloma virus), a highly contagious sexually transmitted disease that infects the skin.

How to treat Genital Warts

Genital warts look like raised, flesh-colored bumps. They can be tiny and invisible to the naked eye, or they can appear in large clusters. If you develop genital warts, you should have them treated right away, because an untreated outbreak that starts out small can rapidly enlarge. There are several treatment options for an outbreak of genital warts, and all of them require a visit to a doctor or clinic.
Genital warts (sometimes called condylomata acuminata or venereal warts) are single or multiple bumps that appear in the genital areas of men and women including the vagina, cervix, penis, and rectum. Like warts that appear on other areas of your skin, genital warts are caused by a virus called HPV.
They are transmitted by skin-to-skin contact during vaginal, anal, or (rarely) oral sex with someone who is infected.
How to treat Genital Warts
If you have genital warts, you need to seek professional medical treatment; there are no effective home remedies. Over-the-counter products meant to remove other types of warts are not effective on genital warts, and may even be harmful. Don't be embarrassed to talk to your doctor or go to a clinic; genital warts are one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, and in many cases outbreaks can be easily treated. It's especially important to be in a doctor's care, since the virus that causes genital warts is linked to certain types of cancer.

Your doctor can give you treatment options, including topical solutions and surgical removal, depending on the location and severity of the outbreak. He or she will decide how to address an outbreak of genital warts by assessing the condition's location and severity. But even though you can control outbreaks with your doctor, there's no cure for HPV so you will always be at risk for recurrences in the future, and there will always be a chance that you can pass the virus on to others through skin-to-skin sexual contact. Don't be embarrassed; talk to your doctor.

Tests and Diagnosis of Genital Warts

Genital warts are soft growths that occur on the genitals. Genital warts are a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV). These skin growths can cause pain, discomfort, and itching. They are especially dangerous for women because some types of HPV can also cause cancer of the cervix and vulva.
Pap tests
For women, it's important to have regular pelvic exams and Pap tests, which can help detect vaginal and cervical changes caused by genital warts or the early signs of cervical cancer — a possible complication of genital HPV infection.
During a Pap test, your doctor will use a device called a speculum to hold open your vagina. He or she will then use a long-handled tool to collect a small sample of cells from your cervix — the passage between your vagina and your uterus. The cells are examined with a microscope for abnormalities.
HPV test
Only a few types of genital HPV have been linked to cervical cancer. A sample of cervical cells, taken during a Pap test, can be tested for these cancer-causing HPV strains.

This test is generally reserved for women ages 30 and older. It isn't as useful for younger women because their immune systems usually can kill even cancer-causing varieties of genital HPV without treatment.

Effective Treatment for Genital Warts

If your warts aren't causing discomfort, you may not need treatment. But if your symptoms include itching, burning and pain, or if visible warts are causing emotional distress, your doctor can help you clear an outbreak with medications or surgery. However, the lesions are likely to come back after treatment.
Condylomata acuminata genital warts is,of course, a sexually transmitted disease caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV).
There are three basic ways of getting rid of genital warts (or any warts, for that matter). The first way is to destroy all of the tissue where the wart virus resides. This is usually done surgically by excising all of the warts or burning them off with electrocautery. We probably will not be doing this much in correctional facilities.

Irritant Chemicals
The second approach is to apply an irritating chemical to the wart which works mainly by stimulating the patient’s immune system to recognize the diseased tissue and to destroy it. There are various irritant chemicals that can be used for this purpose: Trichloroacetic acid and podophyline mentioned by Aldo work, but podofilox, sinecatchins, and imiquinod are considered by dermatologists to be superior (and more expensive) agents. These chemicals are all quite irritating so they need to be meticulously applied. Many of them, like trichloracetic acid, should not be applied to the normal surrounding skin. One way to do this is to create a moat-barrier of vaseline around the wart before you apply the irritant. For a patient with a lot of warts, this can take quite a bit of time. Also, these agents should be applied often. Trichloroacetic acid is applied every 3 days. Podofilox is applied 2 times a day for 3 days then not applied for 4-7 days and then the cycle is repeated. Imiquod is applied 3 times a week for 8 weeks. Clearly the chemical agents are labor intensive.
In the outside world of dermatology, these agents are typically only used on patients who are considered reliable and careful enough to apply these chemicals themselves. This would not work in a correctional setting, of course. There is too much risk of patients doing it wrong or using the irritating chemicals in mischievous ways. However, to bring these patients into the prison clinic for each of these meticulous and time consuming applications takes too much of your time and effort. This is true of outside dermatology clinics, as well. Patients who are not good candidates for self-application of the chemicals are treated with the third treatment option, cryotherapy.
Surgery Treatment for Genital Warts
You may need surgery to remove larger warts, warts that don't respond to medications, or — if you're pregnant — warts that your baby may be exposed to during delivery. Surgical options include:
Freezing with liquid nitrogen (cryotherapy). Freezing works by causing a blister to form around your wart. As your skin heals, the lesions slough off, allowing new skin to appear. You may need repeated cryotherapy treatments. The main side effects include pain and swelling.
Electrocautery. This procedure uses an electrical current to burn off warts. You may have some pain and swelling after the procedure.
Surgical excision. Your doctor may use special tools to cut off warts. You'll need local or general anesthesia for this treatment, and you may have some pain afterward.

Laser treatments. This approach, which uses an intense beam of light, can be expensive and is usually reserved for very extensive and tough-to-treat warts. Side effects can include scarring and pain.

Types of Genital Warts

There are different types of genital warts. Which treatment you require depends on the size and type of warts you have.
All of these different types are caused by the same virus - the HPV virus - and are also known as "condyloma" or "penile/venereal warts".
They look like skin-colored growths located in or around the genital and anal areas.

Most types of genital warts are painless and tend to appear in clusters. If you suffer from such warts you should get treated before having sex again as they are highly contagious.
Different Types Of Warts And Their Treatment
Genital warts are usually soft and moist and tend to appear in "groups" of three to four. Note however, that this differs between patients and that some people will only have one or two warts while others may develop a large number of individual growths. When the warts go unnoticed, they grow and form small cauliflower-shaped clusters that are flesh-coloured.
HPV And Types Of Warts
There are more than a hundred different strains of the human papilloma virus, only a couple of which are responsible for most types of genital warts (as well as anal warts). The majority of genital warts are caused by HPV types 6 and 11. These warts will usually grow for 6 months after which they tend to stop growing. Other strains of HPV can cause warts on your feet or hands, which are less contagious than genital warts. A few strains of HPV are classified as high-risk, as they can lead to specific cancers.
Itchy Or Bleeding Sores?
You might read that genital warts can cause "mild pain" and that they may feel itchy or bleed. In fact, this only happens in rare cases, when warts reach a considerable size and/or if you scratch them off. If you think you have a wart, avoid any scratching (to avoid bleeding), and consult your doctor instead.
Genital Warts In Women
The different forms of genital warts which affect women can appear in or around the vagina, vulva, anus or near the neck of the womb. Often, the warts are too small for you to see or notice. Warts inside the vagina or anus can cause discomfort but they may also not cause any symptoms at all.
Two out of three of cases of genital warts are near the vulva
One out of three cases of genital warts are inside the vagina
One out of three cases are between the vagina and the anus
One out of four cases are around the anus
One out of ten cases are on the cervix
One out of twenty five cases are at the opening of the urethra
Genital Warts In Men
In men, genital warts are not as common as in women. They often appear on the tip of the penis but they can also appear around the anus, especially when the virus is transmitted during anal sex. Most types of warts will appear between one to three months after infection.
If you think you are infected you should get examined to avoid complications and to prevent that you transmit the infection to future partners. In about half of all cases, genital warts appear on the shaft of the penis, usually just below the foreskin.
In one out of three cases, the genital warts are around the anus
In one out of ten cases , the genital warts are on the head of the penis
In one out of ten cases, the genital warts are inside the urethra
In one out of twelve cases, the genital warts are under the foreskin
In about one out of thirty cases, the genital warts appear between the anus and scrotum
In one out of a hundred cases, the genital warts are on the scrotum
Different Types, Different Treatments

Some types of genital warts – usually the smaller ones – are easier to treat than others. Similarly, warts growing on moist skin tend to respond better to treatment than those located on dry skin. Most types of warts can be treated with creams such as Warticon and Aldara. However, should the warts be persistent you need to see a dermatologist and consider other treatment options such as surgically removing them, using cryosurgery (freezing off the warts with liquid nitrogen) or laser treatment.