Treatment of Periungual Warts with Bleomycin Pricking

Kwon, Yong Hyun; Yun, Sook Jung; Lee, Jee Bum; Kim, Seong Jin; Lee, Seung Chul; Won, Young Ho

Abstract

The successful treatment of periungual warts is often difficult to achieve, even though various methods have been tried including cryotherapy and intralesional bleomycin injection, etc. Mostly, they recompany a lot of complications such as severe pain, nail dystrophy, and hyperpigmentation. Recently, a new technique of bleomycin pricking has been introduced with various results. Therefore we tried to re-evaluate the therapeutic efficacy and the patient satisfaction of the bleomycin pricking on periungual warts. A total of 29 patients diagnosed as periungual warts were enrolled in this study. Bleomycin pricking was performed at 2-week interval for 6 months. After treatment, the treated warts were monitored by both doctors and patients. In 29 patients, 29 periungual warts were assessed by four grade scales. Also, we investigated patients' opinions on therapeutic efficacy and degree of pain. Excellent improvement was found in 83%, good in 7%, fair in 3%, and poor in 7%. The average number of treatment was 4.7 times in excellent cases, and proximal portion was the best response site of the periungual lesions. The patients estimated therapeutic efficacy and degree of pain as mean point 4.1 and 4.13, respectively. Except for mild to moderate pricking pain and pinpoint bleeding, there were no significant side effects such as nail dystrophy, pigmentation, skin necrosis, or Raynaud's phenomenon. It is confirmed that bleomycin pricking is the safe and effective treatment modality in periungual warts without any significant complications.