Treatment of genital warts by laser surgery was performed in 100 male patients under local infiltration (2-6 ml 1% Xylocaine) or topical anesthesia with 2.5-7.5 ml EMLA cream. EMLA cream was applied to the warts ten minutes before the operation. Pain was significantly less during application of EMLA than during infiltration of Xylocaine. Infiltration anesthesia resulted in better surgical analgesia than EMLA, although the difference was small. The combined pain scores of application and surgery were significantly smaller in the EMLA group. The result suggests that EMLA applied for ten minutes constitutes a less painful treatment and is thus the anesthetic of choice for the laser surgery of genital warts.