Skin Resurfacing
Scars & skin irregularities have deep psychological impact on patients' quality of life, alleviation & improvement of these conditions can dramatically restore patients confidence & enable them to re-engage in social activities.
While no single technology can fix all problems, all technologies tend to excel in treating one or two conditions & slightly improve the rest… you may need to prioritize the most potential conditions for your practice from the upcoming ones.
The selection of skin resurfacing technology is based on 3 factors:
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Severity of the condition: mild, moderate or severe scars.
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Acceptable downtime duration by the patient.
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Morphology of scar: hypertrophic or atrophic scars.
Skin reacts to different injuries by forming collagen fibers to repair the dermis, hypertrophic scars occur when the repaired tissue elevates above the skin by an overproduction of collagen & fibers during the healing process.
Fractional ablative lasers remove microscopic parts of the scar tissue, this triggers formation of new collagen & partially improves the appearance of the scared tissue. Fractional picolasers recently introduced a new breakthrough in scars treatments, it works by forming ablated spheres in subsurface layers without injuring the surface, an effect known as laser induced optical breakdown 'LIOBs'.
Fractional CO2 laser excels when significant improvement is needed because of its high depth of penetration. It has an average downtime of couple of weeks & isn’t suitable for dark skin colors & in hot weather conditions.
Fractional Er:YAG laser on the other hand has a lower penetration and is considered more suitable for superficial irregularities. It has the advantage of a relatively short downtime of few days & being suitable for all skin types.
Picolaser provides great convenience by not needing any downtime & its ability to treat all skin types all around the year. It is suitable for mild to moderate scars due to its moderate ablation by LIOBs.