Page 16 - LASERS & IPLS IN MEDICAL/AESTHETIC APPLICATIONS

Chapter 1 – Fundamentals of Medical/Aesthetic Lasers and IPLs v1.1
Important questions to answer first....
Many operators are using the ‘wrong’ equipment, without knowing it. In fact, we estimate that only around 20-30% of clinics/salons are using the ‘correct’, or ‘useful’, equipment.
In addition, we reckon that only around 20% of users actually understand what they’re doing and why.
As we see it, there are four main areas of concern in laser/IPL treatments:
1. Poor diagnosis of the skin condition – usually due to a poor understanding of the physiology/anatomy;
2. Poor skin cooling leading to unwanted tissue damage;
3. Poor choice of output parameters – many choose the wrong fluence and/or
pulsewidths, due to a lack of proper understanding. This is critical!!
4. Poor choice of equipment! As we pointed out above, only around 20/30% of equipment
is actually up to the job!!
Energy density (J/cm2)
Wavelength(s) (nm)
Safe and efficient treatments
Skin cooling (temp & time)
Diagnosis:
• Light absorption in epidermal melanin
• Lesion type / “contrast” vs pigmentation
• Anatomical “geometry”
Pulsewidth (ms)
Skin contact pressure
Figure 1: ‘Safe and efficient’ treatments
Most users don’t change the parameters much – they use the pre-set values. They don’t consider the target size, geometry or anatomy etc. We estimate that less than 20% of operators do this process properly!!!
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Chapter 1 LEVEL A Fundamentals of Lasers/IPLs
© The Laser-IPL Guys 2021