Investigation of efficiency of cryotherapy for the treatment of seborrheic keratosis

Seborrheic keratosis is a benign, generally pigmented epidermal tumour which develops from proliferation of epidermal keratinocytes. Lesions are generally asymptomatic but may sometimes cause irritation, bleeding and may be cosmetically unacceptable. Thus treatment may be required. Therapeutic options include curettage, laser, surgical excision and cryotherapy. Two different techniques used in the cryotherapy of seborrheic keratosis are spraying or use of probes. In this study these two different techniques, namely spray and probe applications, were evaluated in terms of efficacy and side effects. Thus, it is aimed to find the most suitable cryotherapy technique for treatment of seborrheic keratosis. Eighty lesions diagnosed as seborrheic keratosis between June 2006 and June 2007 in the Dermatology Outpatient Unit of Adnan Menderes University Medical School were included in the study. The lesions were randomly divided into two groups of 40; to one of which spray cryotherapy was applied, whereas cryotherapy with probes was applied to the other. Patients were asked to score during treatment on a scale of 0 to 10. Satisfactory results were achieved in both groups of seborrheic keratosis with the two different cryotherapy techniques. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of therapeutic outcome. All patients in both groups developed posttreatment hypopigmentation which was still observed in the second and fourth months of follow-up. The intensity of pain suffered was significantly more in the probe cryotherapy group. Both methods of cryotherapy were found to be effective in the treatment of seborrheic keratosis in this study. Spray cryotherapy could be the preferred technique as it was less painful and required less equipment than probe cryotherapy.