BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Potassium hydroxide (KOH) is effective and safe as treatment of viral dermatoses. No systematic review has been done reporting its efficacy as a treatment for anogenital warts.

METHODS: A systematic literature search for controlled clinical trials using KOH, any drug or ablative procedure measuring the clearance rate was conducted. Analysis was done using RevMan v5.3 software.

RESULTS: Four low quality trials, composed of 197 patients were included but only two qualified for meta-analysis. Two studies compared KOH to cryotherapy while the two other trials compared KOH to intralesional 5-fluorouracil (FU) + salicylic acid (SA) and carbon dioxide (CO2) laser vaporization. The KOH group showed a higher clearance rate compared to cryotherapy (RR= 1.40, P> 0.05, I2=39 %) and no recurrence was noted (RR= 0.17, P> 0.05, I2=0) but the difference is not statistically significant. Isik et al., 2014 and Asadi et al., demonstrated that there was no significant difference among groups receiving KOH, 5-FU+SA and CO2 laser vaporization in the mean lesion count and size at follow up visits. (P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Potassium hydroxide has comparable efficacy to the present treatment modalities but well-structured RCTs are needed to further support its use.