Newer Skin Tightening Method Rates High with Patients

Lower energy, multiple-pass approach allows for a more tolerable and reliable treatment

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Newer methods of non-surgical skin tightening using monopolar radiofrequency with lower-energy probes and multiple passes reduce heat pain and increase patient satisfaction with treatment expectations, according to a report published in the August issue of Dermatologic Surgery.

Jeffrey Dover, M.D., of Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., and Brian Zelickson, M.D., of Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H., used a 14-physician multispecialty consensus panel to interpret the satisfaction of 5,700 patients with new methods of monopolar radiofrequency facial skin tightening. Comparisons were made between original one-pass treatments using small probes to deliver a high-energy pulse to heat specific tissue zones and new methods using larger, lower-energy probes and multiple passes.

The researchers found positive patient feedback to the newer low-energy probe treatment with 94 percent saying it met their treatment expectations, compared to 68 percent who received the original procedure. There was also immediate skin tightening in 87 percent of patients with the new methods and only 5 percent reported heat pain, compared to 26 percent with immediate skin tightening and 45 percent complaining of heat pain in those receiving the original algorithm.

"These results demonstrated that using lower energy and a multiple-pass approach as well as treating to an observable end point may allow for a much more tolerable and reliable treatment," the authors write.

The study was partially funded by Allergan.

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