Duct Tape for Warts Is Controversial

Q. I am a nurse and have always relied on conventional medicines or physician-supervised treatments. I noticed a wart on my upper arm that had grown to about pencil-eraser size and remembered an article in your column about warts and duct tape.
Not really wanting to fork over a co-pay at the doctor’s office or endure the pain of freezing the wart, I figured your cure was worth a try. To my amazement, after only one week the wart was completely gone!

My husband was a skeptic too and said if he hadn’t seen it himself, he would never have believed it.
A. We have heard from many others that duct tape works well in getting rid of warts. New research in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (Nov., 2006), however, suggests that duct tape is little better than placebo (16 percent cure vs. 6 percent). This contrasts with a previous study in the same journal (Oct., 2002) showing that duct tape treatment for warts was more effective than freezing them off. Details on duct tape for warts are at: www.peoplespharmacy.com