High satisfaction for ablative fractional skin resurfacing

(HealthDay)—Patients express high satisfaction with ablative fractional skin resurfacing for photoaged skin, despite having high pretreatment expectations, according to a study published in the February issue of Lasers in Surgery and Medicine.

Elisabeth Kohl, M.D., from the University Medical Center Regensburg in Germany, and colleagues compared patient expectations before and patient satisfaction after three fractional CO₂-laser treatments. Patient expectation and satisfaction were examined in a 14-item questionnaire in 24 female patients with rhytides and photoaged skin.

The researchers found that the high patient expectations before treatment were exceeded. The average score of 14 items delineating patient satisfaction was higher after treatment than the expectation before treatment (4.64 ± 0.82 versus 4.43 ± 0.88). After the last treatment there was a significant improvement in skin-related quality of life and patient satisfaction with skin appearance. Patients who were dissatisfied with their skin appearance before treatment (mean, 2.1 on a scale of 0 to 6) reported satisfaction with skin appearance at follow-up (mean, 5.1; P < 0.001). There was no correlation between patient satisfaction with skin appearance and the profilometrically measured reduction of wrinkle size of any facial area.

"This treatment modality can be recommended for patients with photoaged skin wishing to improve skin appearance," the authors write.

The study was partially funded by Alma Lasers GmbH.