Dealing With Warts

A wart is an epidermal (skin) tumor caused by a variety of different viral infections.
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A wart is an epidermal (skin) tumor caused by a variety of different viral infections. Remember that the word tumor simply means lump or mass and does not always infer cancer. In medical terms, warts are typically referred to as papillomas with "papill" being Latin for "nipple" and "oma" meaning "a morbid growth."

All warts are basically caused by different types of the equine papilloma virus, which is a DNA type virus (the nucleic acid is DNA rather than RNA). The virus infects the skin cells, causing various replication abnormalities in the skin cells and excess production of keratin (a major protein type in skin and hair). It typically requires some type of skin damage to allow for invasion and infection–abrasions, sunburn, insect bites, etc. The virus is considered to be contagious, with the lesions being a main source for the virus, and it can survive in the environment for up to two months. It can be transmitted by hand-to-hand contact, horse-to-horse contact, insects (particularly black flies), as well as bridles, brushes, fly masks, and anything that makes contact with the lesions.

Viral Papillomas

The common wart (sometimes called grass wart) occurs in horses less than three years of age (most commonly in those less than one year of age). The lesions are classically wart-like with multiple frond-like projections growing from the infected skin. The most commonly affected areas of the body are the lips and muzzle, and less commonly the eyelids, genitalia, and lower legs. These warts, being of viral etiology, are very contagious to susceptible horses and the spread can be limited by isolating affected animals and carefully disinfecting contaminated equipment (halters, fly masks, bridles, etc.) with an effective product, such as povidone-iodine. Horses over the age of three have most likely already had the infection when younger and have had their immune systems stimulated to prevent infection

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Written by:

Michael A. Ball, DVM, completed an internship in medicine and surgery and an internship in anesthesia at the University of Georgia in 1994, a residency in internal medicine, and graduate work in pharmacology at Cornell University in 1997, and was on staff at Cornell before starting Early Winter Equine Medicine & Surgery located in Ithaca, New York. He was an FEI veterinarian and worked internationally with the United States Equestrian Team. He died in 2014.

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