James C. Hsia

Nonablative skin remodeling: selective dermal heating with a mid-infrared laser and contact cooling combination.

Many of the microscopic changes associated with photodamage reside in the dermis. It follows that subsurface heating of the skin might allow for cosmetic enhancement without loss of the epidermis. Accordingly, we investigated the clinical and microscopic changes produced by a mid‐infrared laser coupled with a contact cooling device.

Treatment of leg telangiectasia using a long‐pulse dye laser at 595 nm

Pulsed dye lasers (PDL) operating at 585 nm wavelength and 0.45 msec pulsewidth offer effective treatment for port wine stains (PWS). Vessels in leg telangiectasias are larger than those in PWS. Longer pulsewidths and wavelengths may improve clearance of these larger vessels.

Treatment of spider veins with the 595 nm pulsed-dye laser☆☆☆★

BACKGROUND Previous attempts to treat spider veins with the conventional 585 nm pulsed-dye laser with a 0.5-ms pulse duration have been relatively ineffective. Recently, a new pulsed-dye laser that is tunable from 585 to 600 nm with a pulse duration 3 times longer than previously available lasers has preliminarily been shown to be effective for treatment of spider veins. OBJECTIVE Our purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of multiple treatments with the tunable long-pulse dye laser in treatment of spider veins of the lower extremity. METHODS Ten female volunteers were treated in two separate areas containing blue or red linear spider veins less than 1.5 mm in diameter. Treatments were administered with the pulsed-dye laser with a 1.5-ms pulse duration and 595-nm light at fluences of 15 and 20 J/cm2, and each subject received a total of 3 treatments at each site, administered at 6-week intervals. Photographs were taken before and 6 weeks after the last treatment. RESULTS Computer-based image analysis showed clearing of more than three fourths of veins after 3 treatments with 15 or 20 J/cm2. Side effects were minimal and the treatments were well tolerated. CONCLUSION The 595 nm, 1.5 ms pulse duration, pulsed-dye laser is safe and effective for treating blue or red spider veins of the lower extremities less than 1.5 mm in diameter in nontanned patients with Fitzpatrick skin types I and II. Multiple treatments improve on the results obtained after a single treatment.

New and potential medical applications for flashlamp excited dye lasers

Summary form only given. Flashlamp-excited dye lasers (FEDL) are routinely used today to treat effectively urinary calculi and cutaneous vascular lesions. Although the types of lasers used for these are both FEDLs, their outputs are vastly different. For stone fragmentation, microsecond, millijoule pulses in the blue-green are used, while for vascular lesions, yellow millisecond-regime, multi-joule pulses are used. These applications demonstrate the versatility of the FEDLs in their ability to generate widely different outputs. This ability to tailor the laser output to optimize the treatment makes the FEDL the ideal laser for a number of new applications.<<ETX>>