Health encyclopaedia - Alphabetical Topic List
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Symptoms of Warts
Warts can be different sizes, ranging from 1mm to over 1cm. You may only have only one or two warts, or lots can develop on the same area of skin.
The size and shape of warts varies:
- Common wart (verucca vulgaris) – is a firm, raised wart with a rough surface that can look a bit like a cauliflower. They can occur anywhere, but are most common on the knuckles, knees and nail folds.
- Plane wart (verruca plana) - is a round, flat topped, yellowish type of wart. It mainly occurs on the back of the hands, especially around the nails and fingers.
- Filiform wart (verruca filiformis) is a long, slender wart that is common on the thin skin of the eyelids, armpits or neck.
- Genital warts (condylomata acuminata) - are small, pink, cauliflower-shaped growths on the penis, vulva (the female external sex organs), or around the rectum. Warts on the vulva are usually soft because the skin here is moist and hairless.
Warts that develop on skin that is dry and hairy (such as the shaft of the penis) tend to be firm. The number of warts that develop varies. Some people have a few that are not very noticeable, while others have a lot.
Genital warts do not usually cause any symptoms, although they may be itchy if they are around the anus. However, the warts may a sign of a sexually transmitted infection (STI), or in rare cases, cancer. - Verrucas (planter warts) are warts on the soles of the feet. They don’t stick up from the surface of the skin; the pressure of your body weight on the feet instead pushes them backwards. This causes verrucas to grow back into the skin, which can be painful.
Verrucas often have a black dot in the centre, surrounded by a hard, white area. The dot is the blood supply to the wart, and the white area is the skin of the wart that is closely packed together. Plantar warts that grow in clusters they are sometimes called mosaic warts.
