Viral warts are an affliction for which new modalities of treatment are needed, especially for large, flat, resistant and/or clustered lesions. Patients and physicians alike are frustrated because none of the existing therapies is completely satisfactory. Preliminary clinical studies indicate that warts, like cancer tumors, may be cleared as a result of being heated to temperatures in the hyperthermic range (42-47oC). Propose is the development of a relatively simple and inexpensive hyperthermia system capable of treating warts and other heat-sensitive skin diseases. The device, a portable, self-contained, microprocessor-controlled system well suited for use in an office practice, will be capable of producing tailored thermal distributions in skin tissues by dynamically controlling the acoustic frequency and power output of an ultrasound transducer, and the temperature of the water bolus that couples the energy to the body.Phase I of this project seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of this concept by fabricating several clinically useful applicators and testing their performance both in the laboratory and clinic. key to the success o this phase is the development of a transducer capable of efficiently and uniformly radiating ultrasound over the frequency range from 5 to 10 MHz, and the successful completion of pilot clinical studies demonstrating safety and efficacy for clearing human warts.Based on Phase I results, Phase II will request funding to develop the dedicated electronics package and fluid conditioning hardware necessary to produce a prototype device and to conduct full scale clinical trials. Fro these investigations, it is anticipated that optimized treatment protocols will emerge that confirm the potency of this new therapy, and thereby create demand for commercial systems.National Institute of Arthritis and Musculosketal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)
