What do they look like?
Warts have a hard ‘warty’ or ‘verrucous’ surface. You can often see a tiny black dot in the middle of each scaly spot, due to a thrombosed capillary blood vessel. There are various types of viral wart.
- Common warts arise most often on the backs of fingers or toes, and on the knees.
- Plantar warts (verrucas) include one or more tender inwardly growing ‘myrmecia’ on the sole of the foot.
- Mosaic warts on the sole of the foot are in clusters over an area sometimes several centimetres in diameter.
- Plane, or flat, warts can be very numerous and may be inoculated by shaving.
- Periungual warts prefer to grow at the sides or under the nails and can distort nail growth.
- Filiform warts are on a long stalk.
- Oral warts can affect the lips and even inside the cheeks. They include squamous cell papillomas.
- Genital warts are often transmitted sexually and predispose to cervical, penile and vulval cancer.
