Sumreen Hafeez, Leena Hafeez, Javaid Iqbal, Ghulam Mujtaba, Saima Illyas.
Efficacy of oral zinc sulphate versus cryotherapy in the treatment of palmoplantar warts.
J Pak Assoc Derma Jan ;31(4):595-9.

Background: Different methods of treatment of warts include occlusion, cryotherapy, electrocautery, salicylic acid, tricholoroacetic acid, podophyllin, 5 fluorouracil, and tretinoin. Systemic therapies are oral zinc sulphate, cimetidine and retinoids. But no single therapy has been proven effective at achieving complete remission in every patient Objective: To compare the efficacy of oral zinc sulphate versus cryotherapy in treatment of palmoplantar warts Methods This randomized control trial was conducted in Department of Dermatology Nishtar Hospital Multan for a period of 6 months. A total of 104 patients with having palmoplantar warts for less than 3 months, 18-35 years of both genders were included. Patients with periungal warts and pregnancy were excluded. Patients were randomly allocated into two groups by lottery method. Group A patients were given oral zinc sulphate (10mg/kg/day) into two divided doses for 6 weeks. Group B patients were given cryotherapy at weekly intervals for maximum of 6 sessions. Patients were followed at 2nd, 3rd and 6th week. At the end of 6 weeks both the groups were evaluated for treatment efficacy. Results: The mean age of patients in group A was 24.58 ± 5.32 years and in group B was 24.13 ± 5.40 years. Out of 104 patients, 56 (53.85%) were females and 48 (48.15%) were males with female to male ratio of 1.2:1. Efficacy of Group A (oral zinc sulphate) was seen in 45 (86.54%) patients while in Group B (cryotherapy) was seen in 33 (63.46%) patients (p-value = 0.007). Conclusion: Oral zinc sulphate has more efficacy than cryotherapy in the treatment of palmoplantar wart. Key words Palmoplantar warts, zinc sulphate, cryotherapy, resolution.

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