Heat Warts Away: 111℉ Hyperthermia
Sauna treatment for warts? It might sound ridiculous but a team of scientists is investigating treating warts with infrared light that heats up the wart area to 111 degrees. All you have to do is sit there for 30 minutes and relax.
Does it actually Work?
If you don’t want to read any more, the short answer is: is seems possible, but not worth going out of your way to seek out this treatment. The longer answer is that there’s a team of scientists in China, who have patented a device that performs this localized heat treatment. This treatment is for common warts (Verruca vulgaris) and Plantar warts. The heat gun should not be applied to genital warts for obvious reasons.
In their research, it seems to work about as well as freezing warts with liquid nitrogen — referred to as cryotherapy. Unfortunately, in the world of wart treatments this means that after a few months of treatment, 30% – 60% of the warts are gone.
Have any other researchers studied this?
Yes. There have been two other studies using heat to treat warts. The first was from 1962, “Hot-water treatment for warts,” where researchers soaked patients’ feet in a 114 degree water bath for anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes once or twice a week. The results were about 50% clearance rate of warts.
Our reason for choosing to treat warts by local heat was based on these facts: (l)
John LoCricchio, Jr., and John R. Haserick
verrucae are circumscribed lesions caused by viruses growing within and being
confined to the epidermal cells; (2) viruses as a heterogenous group of organisms
are inactivated by heat, (3) the skin can take definite amounts of local hyperthermia
without blistering.
Researchers also experimented with a exothermic patch they taped to the wart for two hours. (Sounds like one of those “Hot Hands” winter hand warmers to me) This study was just on two patients, but both warts were cured.
So is this treatment worth using?
This treatment doesn’t really have enough convincing evidence behind it. A handful of studies, cure rates about as good as the better studied methods, and a group of researchers with a patent. However, if you enjoy soaking your feet, or taking saunas, there might be some chance it’ll help cure your warts. However, make sure to wear shower shoes and sit on a towel in the sauna to avoid passing your warts to other as well as contracting new warts. It might be prudent to sanitize your shower shoes between session. If you’re using a soak bucket for your feet, the same advice on sanitation applies as well.
