Page 94 - Chapter 3 - Fundamentals of Laser/IPL Hair Removal

Chapter 3 – Fundamentals of Laser/IPL Hair Removal 1st Edition
They found that the time taken for each treatment varied by a few minutes and that the pain level was similar, ranging between 3 and 5, on average.
Royo et.al. carried out a study on 368 patients with a Fitzpatrick range between 3 and 5, using only the SHR technique. They also used an 810nm wavelength, with a fluence range between 5 and 10 J/cm2 in pulses between 10 and 20 ms. However, they treated relatively small areas of only 10 by 10cm square.
They did this to try to deliver the laser energy more accurately. They calculated that they delivered a total of 9600 Joules in each area, yielding an average total fluence of 96 J/cm2 delivered over the total time (which they didn’t state).
Their laser had a chilled window which was set to 5oC and placed against the skin during the treatments. They observed “intense” erythema following treatment with some perifollicular oedema in ‘most’ patients. However, their results were encouraging:
Hair reduction after 5 sessions, six months later:
Up to 25% reduction in 29 patients (8%), 25 to 50% reduction in 102 patients (28%), 50 to 75% reduction in 219 patients (59%), 75 to 100% reduction in 18 patients (5%).
However, they also observed 1st degree burns in 9 people and 2nd degree burns in 3 people. These, and other adverse effects (hypo- and hyper pigmentation) resolved themselves after six months.
The satisfaction index, from the patients, was also encouraging:
They also noted that more adverse effects occurred in those areas of skin with higher natural pigmentation such as in the arm pits or perineal regions. In addition, they realised that more skin damage occurred when the operator’s technique was not so good! In other words, they applied the laser energy too slowly resulting in overheating of certain areas.
The results from the two studies above suggest that the SHR/in-motion technique is perfectly valid and may be useful but that it must be applied correctly otherwise unwanted damage will occur.
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Very good 8.4%
Good 70.1%
Average 14.4%
Poor 7.1%