Currently, there are many lasers used to treat sun damage/photo-aging of the skin. One older laser system, the carbon dioxide laser, has been very effective for laser treating sun damaged skin but has fallen out of favor. This is because it routinely caused extensive rawness of the skin that typically required over 2 weeks of “downtime” to recover. In addition to the time it took to heal, it frequently caused skin discoloration and occasionally scarring. Many lasers available today require very little downtime and yield some improvement of the skin but are not nearly as effective as the carbon dioxide laser. San Francisco Plastic Surgeon Dr. Cedars in conjunction with Dr. Wall are doing a study designed to assess the effectiveness of a new, modified carbon dioxide laser system.
The MiXto laser is a “fractional” carbon dioxide laser, meaning that, rather than “zapping” 100% of a treated region of skin, it zaps scattered tiny zones of skin comprising a total of perhaps 25% of the treated region. Tiny treatment zones mean no skin rawness. The trade-off appears to be that more than one treatment is needed to get good results. The laser has been used to safely treat over 160 patients in Italy. It has been FDA-approved for treatment of fine lines. Patients who have been treated with this laser report less pain, less downtime, and better results than are reported with other lasers. Dr. Michael Cedars and Dr. Tomi Wall have successfully patients with this laser.
