Injecting warts with a fungus

Filed in archive Treatment on July 22, 2005

Some dermatologists are injecting warts with the fungus, Candida. The thought is to use an antigen to stimulate the body's immune system:

Traditional approaches usually involve methods like applying salicylic acid, burning, freezing, and surgically removing warts one by one, but some UT Southwestern Medical Center doctors now regularly use a different approach when others fail. It involves a shot into a wart, stimulating the body's own natural defense mechanism.

"Our bodies cannot immunologically recognize a wart that's there. If you stimulate the body's immune system locally, you bring in some activated immune cells that will then recognize the abnormal wart present", explained Dr. Jack Cohen, assistant professor of dermatology. "It's essentially using our own body's defense to take care of it."

The therapy can be as effective in many instances as some of the more common therapies, but it doesn't leave scarring, which can occur after burning off warts.

The most common shot used is called Candida antigen, derived from the common yeast that causes infections in women, and thrush, a mouth infection.

("Dermatologists Use Antigen Shots to Alleviate Warts without Scarring", Medical News Today, Jul.22)