Annual Costs Estimated for Wart Treatment in the U.S. for 2015-2017

WEDNESDAY, April 27, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The estimated annual costs were $846 million for cutaneous warts for 2019 in the United States, and costs for anogenital warts were $127 million, according to a research letter published online April 27 in JAMA Dermatology.

Ronald Berna, from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues evaluated annual health care utilization and costs associated with common cutaneous and anogenital wart treatments in a retrospective cohort study using the deidentified Optum Clinformatics Database.

On average, for each year from 2017 through 2019, 263,070 individuals with cutaneous warts (mean age, 44 years; 52 percent female) and 28,516 with anogenital warts (mean age, 43 years; 40.7 percent female) were captured. The researchers found that 64.2, 1.8, and 2.2 percent of individuals with cutaneous warts were treated with lesional destruction, intralesional injection, and prescription topical medications, respectively. For anogenital warts, 35.3, 0.6, and 16.5 percent were treated with lesional destruction, intralesional injection, and prescription topical medications, respectively. For 2019, the annual costs were estimated at $846 million and $127 million for cutaneous and anogenital warts, respectively. The per-patient costs were estimated at $288.28 and $431.47 for cutaneous and anogenital warts, respectively.

"Understanding health care utilization for warts provides useful information for anticipatory guidance (e.g., expected number of treatments) and insight into the burden of disease," the authors write.

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