Laser therapy of verrucous epidermal naevi

Forty‐three patients with verrucous epidermal naevi were treated either with argon‐laser coagulation or with carbon‐dioxide laser vaporization. With the argon laser, very good to acceptable results could be achieved in 85% of patients with 'soft', papillomatous lesions. In‘hard', keratotic naevi the argon laser proved ineffective. In some of these cases CO2‐laser treatment was effective, whereas generally there was a tendency to hypertrophic scar formation with this laser. As other therapeutic modalities for epidermal naevi are either insufficient or not applicable in widespread lesions, we feel that laser treatment is a valuable therapeutic alternative.