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Laser surgery experts of multiple specialties and from all over the world assembled at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center to exchange

their experience with practical and clini-cal applications and new and emerging

technologies in aesthetic medicine. What separates the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS) meet-ing from other confer-ences in the field is the fundamental theme of science and research that runs through the pro-gram. If you want to stay on the cutting edge of laser technology, this is a must-attend meeting.

Professor Robert S. Langer of the David H. Koch Institute at MIT gave a stimulating keynote address titled, “Biomaterials and Biotechnology: From the Discovery of the First Angiogenesis Inhibitors to the Development of

By Wendy Lewis

Laser innovations shine at the 33rd annual ASLMS conference

Laser Light Show

the SKIN & AESTHETICS

Wendy Lewis

Controlled Drug Delivery Systems and the Foundation of Tissue Engineering.” Hot topics at this year’s 4-day conference included “cutaneous laser surgery, pho-tobiomodulation, photodynamic therapy, and interstitial laser devices,” according to Program Chair Thomas Rohrer, MD, a Boston-based dermatologist.

The meeting kicked off with the annu-al Tech Connect, a Non-CME Session chaired by New York City-based dermatol-ogist Roy Geronemus, MD, and UC Irvine dermatologist Christopher Zachary, MD, where physicians as well as industry mem-bers are invited to participate in a “straight talk session where physicians will be able to discuss brand names.” The program featured 15 experts who each spoke for about 6 minutes on hair removal, vascular lesions, body contouring and cellulite, resurfacing and rejuvenation, and facial and neck lifting and tightening. According to New York City-based dermatologist Melanie Grossman, MD, “Tech Connect featured a stellar group of speakers who spoke honestly about their opinions on the

best devices to treat a variety of conditions. Every year, this program attracts a good crowd of physicians who are eager for candid insights on what systems to invest in for their practices.”

A perennial favorite—“Cutaneous Laser Surgery Sessions”—focused on the use of lasers and light sources for treating vascu-lar and pigmented lesions, skin rejuvena-tion with fractional lasers, hair removal, scar revision, port wine stains, post frac-tional laser delivery of topical agents, home devices, onychomycosis, and body contouring.

SCAR WARSDermatologists Jill Waibel, MD, of

Miami and Nathan Uebelhoer, MD, of La Jolla, Calif, served as co-directors of the Scar Revision lunchtime forum that focused on the optimal timing of treat-ment and new treatment modalities using various lasers and medications, which is an evolving category.

Lumenis Ltd presented its UltraPulse System’s SCAAR FXTM (Synergistic

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Coagulation and Ablation for Advanced Resurfacing) modality that treats a range of deep skin lesions, including acne and surgical scars. It announced the “HOPE” Campaign that features patient stories describing how treatment with UltraPulse improved their lives. To illustrate the heal-ing potential, a 13-year-old burn victim was on hand at the Lumenis booth with her mom to talk about her compelling personal experience.

Syneron Medical Ltd launched its Sublative® technology for the removal or modification of the appearance of acne scars, available on all of the Syneron Sublative-compatible systems, which includes elos Plus™, eTwo™, and eMa-trix™. Sublative technology is touted as the only bipolar fractional radiofrequency energy device proven to effectively treat acne scars. This fractional bipolar radio-frequency technology delivers excellent results with little to no downtime and is a safe and effective treatment alternative for all skin tones. The addition of an acne scar treatment further expands the uses for Sublative to address a larger segment of the aesthetic market.

Speaking at a reception with Denver-based dermatologist Stephen Eubanks, MD, Amy Taub, MD, a dermatologist in Lincolnshire, Ill, touted the technology. “I use Sublative as my ‘go to’ laser for acne scars instead of fractional laser treatment. We can do a regional treatment to reduce atrophic scars. Sublative can also treat wrinkles, tightening, crepey neck, around the eyes, and striae, and can be used on the face, chest, and hands. And it is one of the few things we can say really helps with enlarged pores.”

In conjunction with the new acne scar treatment, Syneron introduced Skinhibitions™—a new consumer cam-paign based on market research the company completed that showed that a majority of women were interested in more efficacious skin procedures, but were inhibited by fear of pain, significant down-time, side effects, and high cost.

FACIAL REJUVENATIONFacial rejuvenation therapies attracted

a lot of attention among attendees. Joe

Sublative®

Technological advances are arising from Europe as well as Asia, which may soon surpass the US as the leading market worldwide for energy-based devices.

Niamtu III, DMD, from Midlothian, Va, presented his perspective in a lecture titled, “15 Years of CO

2 Laser and Still the

Gold Standard.” The premise of his talk was that although fractional laser resur-facing has become extremely popular, it has been overpromoted by media and industry as to actual results. “Less down-time and faster healing is a necessity for many patients, but it may take four or five fractional treatments to produce a result. As much as we want a better technology, traditional CO

2 is still the gold standard for

skin tightening, wrinkle treatment, acne treatment, and dyschromias.”

Alma Lasers had several presentations on the program focusing on the ClearLiftTM nonablative Q-switched technology for aging skin with its vShape™ radiofre-quency device. The system uses micro-plasma technology to provide fractionated skin resurfacing with minimized risk and downtime for patients.

Palomar Medical hosted a special eve-ning panel with Hunt Valley, Md-based dermatologist Robert Weiss, MD, and sev-eral others, including E. Victor Ross, MD, a San Diego-based dermatologist, and New York and New Jersey-based dermatologist David Goldberg, MD. Of particular inter-est was the Skintel™ Melanin Reader that is used to take measurements of baseline pigmentation. According to Weiss, “The Palomar system is a leading technology to prevent overtreatment of tanned or pig-mented skin with light devices.”

Photodynamic therapy to treat cancer

and other skin conditions was a popular topic at this year’s meeting. “PDT is an important treatment option for skin can-cer, pre-cancers, and acne, but new thera-peutic developments in the pipeline were also discussed,” says Macrene Alexiades-Armenakas, MD, PhD, a New York City-based dermatologist. In fact, a special ses-sion from the Pan American Photodynamic Association (papdt.org) ran concurrently with a session presented by the North American Association for Laser Therapy (naalt.org) to discuss new applications for low-level light therapy or photobiomodu-lation to reduce postprocedure side effects.

On the skin-tightening front, Ulthera® promoted its deep ultrasound technology for the all-important neck area as the only noninvasive procedure FDA-approved to lift skin on the neck, chin, and brow.

TATTOO REMOVALUndoubtedly, Cynosure’s new

PicoSure® Picosecond Laser Workstation took center stage. According to Geronemus, whose laser center in New York City has two of the three PicoSure lasers currently being used, “The PicoSure laser delivers short bursts of energy to the skin in trillionths of a second and more rapidly clears almost all tattoos, especially blue and green colors which have been difficult to remove by other lasers. We are now looking at PicoSure for other indica-tions, including treating scars.” ASLMS President Jeffrey Dover, MD, who has the third PicoSure at Skincare Physicians

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on Chestnut Hill, Mass, had equally high praise for the system: “It is revolutionary. It works twice as fast at clearing tattoos as traditional devices.”

BODY SHAPINGBody shaping and cellulite reduction

make up a growing category in the aes-thetic market for energy-based devices. ASLMS 2013 highlighted the best and brightest in this increasingly crowded seg-ment. “The content for this year’s meeting was expanded considerably, with several ‘firsts’ presented, including data on stacked pulses to improve results and reduce pain with Liposonix®, and a new ultra-sound device that is painless to reduce fine lines, which actually won an award as one of the best papers of the meeting,” says Michael Kaminer, MD, of Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Alma’s Expert’s Forum high-lighted the Harmony platform featuring ClearLift™, said to be a virtually painless, nonablative laser skin-resurfacing plat-form, and vShape™, a multiapplication radiofrequency platform for face, body, and cellulite featuring the PixelRF. The new ImpactTM was also discussed for its ability to offer enhanced delivery of topical cosmeceuticals to promote absorption so that the product reaches the targeted tissue depth in the skin.

Sciton introduced CelluSmooth™, a laser module with proprietary M3 technol-ogy for minimally invasive treatment of cutting fibrous septae, emulsifying fat, plus dermal tightening to improve the appear-ance of lumpy and dimpled skin.

Zeltiq® launched “Enhancing CoolSculpting® Outcomes Through Treatment to Transformation.” This ini-tiative was designed to promote global patient assessment to address all potential treatment areas and then recommend the right number of treatments to consis-tently achieve the desired results. Lori Brightman, MD, a New York City-based

dermatologist, says, “Everybody is differ-ent, so being able to customize the treat-ment plan for each patient leads to higher patient satisfaction.”

HAIR REMOVALInvasix® introduced a new family of

devices under the Inmode MD Aesthetic Solutions brand, starting with Diolaze™ for hair removal. The Diolaze’s main ben-efit is the speed of removing hair due to a powerful diode wavelength with a larger spot size delivered simultaneously. The treatment includes a built-in cooling mechanism to render it virtually painless

for the patient. Home use

devices were also a topic of discus-sion, with new and improved variations on the horizon in skin resurfacing. The FDA-cleared Tria® Hair Removal Laser 4X is a rede-signed system that claims to offer bet-ter results in half

the time, and features a pulse counter that has been added to the device to keep track of the amount of pulses per ses-sion. Consumers can track the number of pulses per body part so they know when they have effectively treated each area. According to Brian Biesman, MD, an ocu-loplastic surgeon based in Nashville, Tenn, “Since Tria is a home use company, this laser-assisted hair removal device is bril-liantly designed and engineered. We con-sider it an ideal device for home use as a stand-alone treatment or for maintenance and spot treating after patients have had a course of office-based laser hair removal.”

INTERNATIONAL FORUMTechnological advances are arising

from Europe as well as Asia, which may soon surpass the US as the leading mar-ket worldwide for energy-based devices. Directed by Henry HL Chan, MBBS, PhD, FRCP, from Hong Kong and Christine C. Dierickx, MD, from Brussels, Belgium, the “International Experience in Lasers in Dermatology” session featured new

Alma vShape™

and innovative technologies and unique approaches on all skin types. Topics that received the most attention included pig-mentary disorders, vascular lesions, frac-tional technologies, home devices, skin of color, and laser lipolysis. n

Wendy Lewis is president of Wendy Lewis & Co Ltd, Global Aesthetics Consultancy, founder/editor in chief of beautyinthebag.com, and a contributing editor to Plastic Surgery Practice. She can be reached at wl@wlbeauty.com.

n www.almalasers.com

n www.coolsculpting.com

n www.cynosure.com

n www.inmodemd.com

n www.lumenis.com

n www.palomarmedical.com

n www.sciton.com

n www.syneron.com

n www.triabeauty.com

n www.ultherapy.com

ASLMS 2014 will be held April 2-6 in Phoenix. For more info, visit www.aslms.org.

Plan Early for 2014

Resources

Home use devices were also a topic of discussion, with new and improved variations in skin resurfacing on the horizon.