Welcome to the Seborrhoeic Keratosis Treatment Website

This website is about Seborrhoeic Keratoses, what they are and how they can be removed without surgery, surgical incision or scarring.

What is a Seborrhoeic Keratosis (senile wart / seborrhoeic wart)?

A Seborrhoeic Keratosis usually appears on the skin of adults as a brown crusty spot or lump. Although they are usually quite distinctive being dark brown with a hard crust, they can occasionally be more flesh coloured or much darker, almost black.

Seborrhoeic Keratoses can vary a great deal in their shape. Often they are round but they can also appear as an oval, or sometimes a more irregular shape. Although they can occasionally occur singly more often than not you may find several or sometimes a great many of them.

They occur more commonly the older you get and they used to be called "senile warts" or "seborrhoeic warts". If you are over 40 the more likely you are to have seborrhoeic keratoses. The term ‘senile wart’ is no longer used as a name as it could cause offence since 40 cannot really be classified as senile!

They are also not warts, as they are NOT caused by the wart virus (HPV or Human Papilloma Virus). They are instead just over-growths of certain cells in the skin layer, called "basal cells". As such, they are also not infectious and cannot be spread from person to person.

In normal skin, basal cells are found at the bottom of the epidermis and, as the cells grow and mature, they work their way towards the surface of the skin. At a certain point, they die and just leave a keratin layer. This layer acts as a protective layer for the skin. In areas of friction, such as knuckles, heels or knees, this layer can become quite thickened. Manual workers often have very thickened keratin layers over their hands where they use their hands continually.

With a Seborrhoeic Keratosis abnormally growing basal cells produce excessive amounts of keratin. This is what gives the crusty layer on top of a Seborrhoeic Keratosis.

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