Laser therapy is an appealing treatment for
acne: no messy creams, no drugs and minimal risk of side effects.
Unfortunately, there also appears to be no benefit, at least with one type of laser treatment called pulsed dye laser therapy, according to new research from the University of Michigan Health System. The study, which appears in the June 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found pulsed dye laser therapy was not effective in treating acne.
Many dermatologists already use lasers to treat various conditions, including wrinkles, scars and acne. However, few randomized, controlled clinical trials have examined the value of lasers for treating acne and none show conclusively whether the treatments actually work.
“Acne affects the vast majority of people at some point and may have a significantly negative impact on their lives. Lasers have the potential to be a safe and convenient treatment option – but only if it’s effective. The only way to know how to advise patients is to objectively study these treatments,” says lead study author Jeffrey Orringer, M.D., clinical assistant professor of dermatology at the U-M Medical School.
In this study, researchers randomly assigned 40 participants with acne to receive treatment to either the left side or right side of their face. The untreated half of the face could then serve as a comparison that would take into account each person’s natural skin changes.
The treatment involved moving a wand-like device across the person’s face to deliver nearly 400 laser pulses. Each treatment lasted about 10 minutes, and most people reported no side effects. The pulses felt like a rubber band snapping and some participants reported slight redness that lasted a few hours. Patients returned for clinical examinations, including counts of the number of acne lesions, every two weeks for 12 weeks. In addition, both sides of the face were photographed at each visit, and a panel of three dermatologists later assessed the overall severity of the acne. These doctors and those conducting the clinical examinations were not aware of which side of each person’s face had been treated.
The researchers compared the differences in subjects’ acne severity from the beginning of the study to the conclusion 12 weeks later. In that time, on average, the side of the face that received treatment showed the same degree of change – for better or worse – as the side that was not treated, indicating that the laser therapy did not impact the course of the disease.
A study published last year in the journal Lancet reported positive results with very similar therapy. That study was published while the UMHS study was ongoing. The Lancet study did not include a split-face design, however, and instead used separate participants who received placebo therapy as a comparison.
“In our study, we saw some patients’ skin getting better, and we saw other patients’ skin worsening. However, the changes were the same for both the treated and untreated sides of the face. It is easy to see how, without the split-face design, some changes could be interpreted as a treatment-related improvement,” says Orringer, director of the Cosmetic Dermatology and Laser Center at UMHS.