Combined intralesional injection of tuberculin purified protein derivative plus cryotherapy versus each alone in the treatment of multiple common warts

Different modalities are used for treatment of common warts, but none of them had been proved the best in achieving complete cure. We aim to compare the effect of cryotherapy, intralesional injection of tuberculin purified protein derivative (PPD) and cryotherapy combined with intralesional injection of tuberculin PPD in the treatment of multiple common warts. This study is a randomized clinical trial in which the patients were randomly divided into three groups; group (A) included 25 patients subjected to cryotherapy, group (B) included 25 patients subjected to intralesional injection of tuberculin PPD and group (C) included 25 patients subjected to cryotherapy plus intralesional injection of tuberculin PPD. All the three groups showed a significant clinical improvement (p < 0.001) with statistically significant difference between cryotherapy group (A) and intralesional injection of tuberculin PPD group (B) (p < 0.001) and between cryotherapy group (A) and cryotherapy plus intralesional injection of tuberculin PPD group (C) (p < 0.001). However, there was no statistically significant difference between both intralesional injection of tuberculin PPD group alone (B) and cryotherapy plus intralesional injection of tuberculin PPD group (C) (p = 0.213). In Conclusion the cryotherapy combined with intralesional injection of PPD and intralesional injection of PPD alone are better than cryotherapy alone in treatment of multiple common warts. However, better response could be reached in combination of both cryotherapy and intralesional PPD with less number of sessions.