This week’s 32nd Annual Conference of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery in Kissimmee, Florida will have several scientists, physicians, and engineers to assess the effect of innovative new laser treatments on scarred tissues caused by severe burns.
The advances in medical care have enabled increase of burn survival individuals in the U.S. up to 1 M per year, where majority of survival victims result in severe disfigurement.
During the ASLMS Conference on April 20, the Miami Dermatology and Laser Institute’s medical director, Dr. Jill Waibel, M.D., stated that positive results can be achieved if the scars are given laser treatment at an earlier stage. The fractional ablative lasers serve as a versatile tool for fixing both the functionality and aesthetic impacts resulting from serious burn scars.
Following one of the first fractional laser treatments, Waibel performed another laser-based procedure using fractional ablative laser in 2009. Waibel says that the scar will be vaporized on treating with fractional ablative lasers. This is achieved when the skin is heated up to 1000C or more. A new, healthy collagen replaces the scarred area. The skin becomes very much normal upon subsequent treatments. This procedure has proven to be both clinically and histologically successful.
Waibel adds that scarring in large body surface areas can be effectively treated with lasers and in early stages of scarring, steroid treatments are being incorporated. Scars worsen 3 to 7 months following the injury. Most of the patients under recovery phase in the burn unit do not experience severe scarring. Based on clinical hypotheses, it can be determined the early treatment of scarring leads to less severity of the scar with more functional range of motion.