The second patient was a 62-year-old male gynecologic doctor with 30 years of experience in laser ablation and LEEP procedures, diagnosed with HPV 16-positive base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma.
Can Laser Plumes Lead to Wart Spread?
Regarding the infectivity of laser plumes generated during laser treatment of warts, a comparative study conducted in 1995 between CO2 laser surgeons and two groups of population-based patients with skin warts found that the rate of wart occurrence associated with CO2 laser surgery (5.4%) did not significantly differ from that of skin warts. However, the study subsequently identified a significant difference in the rates of plantar warts, nasopharyngeal warts, genital warts, and perianal warts between the surgical doctor study group and the second control group. The authors suggested that specific types of HPV infection, such as genital warts, may tend to infect the upper respiratory tract mucosa, and further research is warranted on the hazards of laser plumes.
