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Duct Tape for Warts? Maybe Not

Study Casts Doubt on Duct Tape as Home Remedy for Warts

By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Nov. 8, 2006 - Finally, there may be something duct tape can't fix: the lowly wart.

Despite claims in an earlier study, covering warts with duct tape may not make them vanish faster after all, say Dutch researchers, including Maastricht University's Marloes de Haen, MD.

The Dutch researchers had heard of a study in which duct tape showed promise as a home remedy for warts -- the skin infections caused by the human papillomavirus.

So de Haen's team conducted their own study, now published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The study included 103 Dutch kids aged 4-12 who had at least one wart.

For six weeks, half the children wore duct tape over one of their warts, while the rest wore corn pads over one of theirs.

Once a week, the children uncovered the wart, soaked it in warm water for five minutes, then rubbed the wart gently with a pumice stone.

During the study, the warts covered by duct tape were only slightly more likely to heal than those covered by corn pads.

"After six weeks, the wart had disappeared in 16% of the children in the duct tape group, compared with 6% in the placebo [corn pad] group," the researchers write.

That margin was so slim that it may have been due to chance, de Haen's team says.

Most of the kids in the duct tape group -- 81% -- said the tape didn't stick well to their skin. And 15% reported skin irritations, including rashes.

"Further research with longer follow-up would only be useful with a tape that is better sticking," write the researchers.

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