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Fraxel Laser Only Treats 20 Percent of the Skin with Multiple Passes?

asked 2 years ago by gengen in San Diego, CA
Latest answer by Ronald Shelton, MD
Question viewed 362 times
Tags: skin

During a Fraxel Restore treatment, when the technician does multiple passes over the same area, how does the laser know which area is the same skin being treated and not untreated skin?

I'm trying to wrap my head around how the laser only treats 20% of the skin at a time when it does multiple passes.

3 answers to Fraxel Laser Only Treats 20 Percent of the Skin with Multiple Passes?

+2

How does Fraxel work

This is an excellent question. Fraxel has a patent protected technology where by the handpiece used by the technician, nurse, or doctor can roll over the skin delivering approximately 2000 microthermal zones (MTZs) per square centimeter. This number is an average and could vary depending on how the user programmed the laser's density setting. In general, the doctor will program the power, density, and number of passes into the laser and the laser will calculate how densely to space... more
John Burns, MD

Dallas Plastic Surgeon
+1

Fraxel Restore Laser safer by treating only a percent of surface area each treatment

Different settings in energy levels affect the density of the laser beams and the number of passes also affects the percent of area treated. This is a summation of every microlaser beam that goes through the epidermis. It is not meant to say that there aren't repetitive strikes in the same exact microbeam area. By treating the skin this way, compared to the older laser technology which destroyed all the epidermis in the path of the diameter of the laser beam. This made healing take much... more
Ronald Shelton, MD

Manhattan Dermatologist

www.thenyac.com

+1

Fraxel laser Treats a Percentage or "Fraction" of the Skin

Hi Gengen, The "20%" number is arrived at by the ratio of the total surface area of laser hits on the skin to the total surface area of the treated skin. The surface area of the face is say 100 sq cm. The area of a single laser hit with Fraxel is about 1/10 the diameter of a hair follicle. Add millions of those microscopic hits up until they reach 20 sq cm, and you have a "20%" treatment. Is there overlap of some of these microscopic laser hits? I would imagine that... more
Michael A. Persky, MD

Los Angeles Facial Plastic Surgeon

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