One of the major concerns of patients undergoing surgery are the "scars" that remain. To date, there has been little that could be offered to significantly improve this surgical morbidity. A prospective, IRB approved study was performed utilizing intense pulsed light, predominately 290-320 nm to treat hypopigmented facelift scars. This wavelength was selected because UVB radiation stimulates melanogenesis. Treated areas were protected between sessions using a mechanical or topical sun block. An initial test patch determined the treatment fluence. Fifteen patients with hypopigmented facelift scars were treated. Patients received up to 15 treatments and the treated and control sites were sequentially photographed with standardized RGB color bars. Evaluation by the patient and the investigator ranked improvement as follows: 0 = no change, 2 = 25-49%, 3 = 50-74%, and 4 = 75% or better color match to normal skin.

RESULTS Treatment sessions averaged 2-5 minutes. Results reflect that all patients ranked themselves as a 4. Investigator evaluations ranked 5 patients with 4,8 patients with a 3 and 2 patients with a 2 result. Adverse effects included initial erythema and epidermal sloughing in 25%. The pigmentation of hypopigmented scars may be secondary to stimulation of adjacent melanocytes in normal skin or activation of melanocytes within the scar. Treatment results of other conditions such as stretch marks, traumatic scars etc. will be shown to demonstrate other possible clinical settings for this technology. Long term follow-up of these patients will determine the retention of pigmentation vs. the need for secondary treatments.
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