Cryotherapy no better than salicylic acid for verrucas

摘要

Lynch and colleagues state that they searched several databases for evidence relating to the treatment of cutaneous warts. They suggest that lack of effectiveness of cryotherapy versus salicylic acid for verrucas may be due to the low statistical power of the subgroups of patients with verrucas in studies of cutaneous warts. However, in our trial published in The BMJ in 2011, we randomised 240 patients with verrucas overthe age of 12 years to cryotherapy (liquid nitrogen) orsalicylic acid and found an identical (14%) clearance rate at 12 weeks in the two groups. The trial was included in the Cochrane review referred to by the authors. We agree with Wookey that it is surprising the authors continue to use cryotherapy, which is painful and has no proved benefit over salicylic acid. Given the low cure rates seen in our study, however, the role of salicylic acid for the treatment of verrucas is also questionable. Sarah Cockayne research fellow.