Laser therapy may rejuvenate sun-damaged skin

Washington, United States, October 23: A procedure that increases the skin's sensitivity to light, followed by laser therapy, can rejuvenate the sun-damaged skin, a new study has suggested.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System’s Department of Dermatology have suggested that the skin that has been damaged by the sun can be revived by a topical solution made by DUSA Pharmaceuticals Inc and then treating it with laser therapy.

Called photodynamic therapy, the treatment increases collagen levels in the skin and also produces other skin changes that are known to improve its appearance, the researchers said. In photodynamic therapy, a light-activated medication is exposed to a light source.

To reach their findings, researchers at the University of Michigan recruited 25 adults (15 women and 10 men) aged 54 to 84, whose forearm skin was significantly damaged by the sun, or photodamaged.

The team of researchers, headed by Jeffrey Orringer, director of the University of Michigan's Cosmetic Dermatology and Laser Center, first applied DUSA’s topical photosensitizer called 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) to the damaged skin of all the participants and left it on for three hours. Then, they cleaned the skin and treated it with a pulsed-dye laser using brief flashes of a single wavelength of light.

The study subjects received the same treatment four to five times over the following six months.

Orringer and colleagues noticed that the combination therapy resulted in a fivefold increase in levels of a protein called Ki67, which is tightly associated with somatic cell proliferation. They also found that the therapy multiplied production of collagen, a key structural protein of skin that makes the skin firm, supple and young looking. In addition, it promoted the thickening of the skin's outer layer (epidermis).

"We do believe that the treatment would, in fact, improve the appearance of patients' skin," Orringer said. "It lends molecular or scientific credibility to a procedure that's being done out there, and it's also the first step in understanding how to make this treatment more effective."

Available since the early 1990s, Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is currently used as a treatment for precancerous lesions and for such benign skin conditions as psoriasis, acne, and skin disorders caused by the human papilloma virus.

PDT is a form of non-surgical cancerdefine treatment that combines a photosensitizing medication with exposure to a laser or other specific light wavelength to kill cancer cells.

"This type of therapy has been performed in clinical practice for the past few years but we've never had detailed molecular evidence for why it may work," said Orringer, who reported the findings of his study on Monday in the Archives of Dermatology, an American Medical Association journal.

Although, the therapy showed significant effects on sun-burnt skin, Orringer said more tests are needed to determine that the therapy can be used to rejuvenate facial skin that has been damaged by too much sun exposure.