Page 34 - LASERS & IPLS IN MEDICAL/AESTHETIC APPLICATIONS

Chapter 1 – Fundamentals of Medical/Aesthetic Lasers and IPLs v1.1
o Note that larger spot sizes are more painful than smaller ones at identical parameter settings (fluence, pulse duration, filters etc)
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These devices offer proper skin cooling during treatment, which allows for higher fluences and longer pulse durations without unwanted tissue damage, resulting in a higher success rate for treatments.
Salon IPL Systems
Salon-type IPL systems tend to be the smaller, cheaper units. These units typically offer the following:
• Limited wavelength range – usually one or two handpieces with fixed filters
• Limited maximum fluence
• Limited pulse duration range
• Completely insufficient or relatively poor skin cooling systems
• Non-adjustable skin cooling temperature settings
In addition, many of these units do not allow the flexibility of the professional devices. Instead, they offer pre-set parameters (usually fluence, wavelength range and pulsewidths) which have a relatively poor success rate.
The training for such systems tends to be poor to non-existent, in many cases. As a direct consequence, results tend to be poor too, which tarnishes the reputation of all IPL systems!
However, by far the most important issue with these systems is the poor skin-cooling system. Often, these units employ the flashlamp cooling system as a source of skin-cooling, which is useless. During prolonged treatment sessions such as hair removal, the temperature of the waveguide, which contacts the skin surface, often increases to above skin surface temperatures (around 30 to 34°C), leading to pre-heating of the skin rather than cooling! This is the main reason why such systems often damage the skin.
Unfortunately, with IPL systems, it really is a case of ‘you get what you pay for...’
IPLs – What are they?
● IPL systems are basically glorified ‘camera flash guns’! They are essentially a very powerful flashlamp inside a specially designed unit which reflects most of the light out at one end.
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Chapter 1 LEVEL A Fundamentals of Lasers/IPLs
Proper skin cooling devices – independent of the flashlamp cooling system Adjustable skin cooling temperature settings
Independent setting of fluence and pulse duration
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