Laser Acne Treatment

Laser Acne Treatment? Is laser Resurfacing the only treatment for severe scars?

Both atrophic and hypertrophic scars, often need laser skin resurfacing. This laser can greatly improve the skin’s appearance but with serious risks and complications. (irritations, redness, scabbing, swelling).This laser targets both the surface and the lower layers of skin.

Although the Ultrapulse CO2 laser acne treatment is quite beneficial in treatment of acne lesions, it's not very effective for significant acne scars.

Many of these scars are persistent after laser acne treatment and require a more aggressive approach.

Often, the best treatment of severe lesions is only a combination of subcision and small-volume fat transfer, acne laser treatment, dermabrasion, and excision or grafting.

A chemical peel can be used on the chest and neck area, around the eyes and other areas that will not be resurfaced with the CO₂ laser.
This peel consists of 3 or 4 coats of Jessner peel, followed with the application of 25–35% trichloroacetic acid solution.

To treat atrophic acne scars, subcision of adipose tissue is necessary.

Laser acne treatment resurfacing is begun on the forehead, and passes in this area shrink the collagen and improve the acne scars.

Dermabrasion with a large dome-shaped, coarse diamond fraise is used to further improve acne scars. Usually, 2 to 3 cycles are adequate to plane down visible acne scars.

Any significant lesions that are not still removed are excised with a scalpel or a disposable punch.

Large acne scars are either excised or punch-grafted during the laser acne treatment resurfacing procedure. The new epidermis grows across the wound smoothly, and the excisions are not usually visible.

Finally, the full face is covered with the silicone sheeting. These are left in place for 5 days and then followed with the application of a petrolatum-based ointment for another 5 days.

With this treatment the the patient can achieve a 75 to 80% improvement of acne scars.

Not all cases required all procedures. It was impossible to state which procedure resulted in the most improvement, for this varied from case to case.

None of these procedures alone work well in reducing lesions.

A chemical peel may make the face look fresher for several weeks because of residual edema, but in the long term the acne valleys return.

The CO2 acne laser treatment tightened the skin and gave a temporary improvement to depressed acne valley scars, but the long-term benefit was inadequate in the significantly scarred face.

Dermabrasion, by itself, did not puff out the acne valleys or shrink the collagen.Only subcision and elevation of the atrophic acne valleys really improve these types of scars.

However, it was the combination of laser acne treatment and others techniques that gave the best overall, global improvement.

Acne laser treatment References:

Abstract Methods Results Discussion References
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