Warts in a Pediatric Renal Transplant Population

18 of 49 pediatric renal transplant recipients, all of whom were on continual steroid and immunosuppressive treatment, were found to have warts. Although all 18 patients received treatment for this problem, only 5 had the warts successfully eradicated. The frequency of warts among transplant patients is three times that of the general childhood population and twice that of a group of nephrotic pediatric patients who received immunosuppressive therapy. We propose that drug-induced suppression of cell-mediated, and to a lesser extent, humoral immunity, may predispose people to develop warts.