Laser treatment uses an energy-based device to improve your appearance, remove tissue, or cure disease. It was pioneered in the medical field more than six decades ago when researchers discovered that high-energy beams of intense single-colored light interact in useful ways with tissues in your skin and body. A laser, which stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, can be very precise. It can cut through tissue very quickly and without bleeding. It can also be used to heat and destroy tissue (as in certain types of tumors).
Your doctor may use lasers on their own or with other treatments. They can be very accurate when cutting through tissue, and they can be used to kill tumor cells or seal off blood vessels during surgery. They can even activate light-sensitive drugs that destroy cancer cells or shrink precancerous ones.
Most people who have laser treatment are having cosmetic procedures done in a clinic or office, not in a hospital. Before you have a laser treatment, your care team will numb the area that’s being treated. For example, for a facelift or laser resurfacing of the skin, your care team might put an anesthetic cream on the area being treated. For other procedures, your doctor will give you medicine to help you relax or feel less anxious during the procedure.
During laser resurfacing of the skin, your doctor will pass a handheld device over the surface of your skin. The laser device sends bursts of energy through the outer layer of your skin, which is called the epidermis. This heats and damages the upper layers of your skin, but it doesn’t damage your underlying tissues. This stimulates collagen production over time, reducing fine lines and wrinkles.
For this type of laser treatment, our doctors use a Lumenis M22 platform that contains multiple laser options including IPL, ResurFx and Nd:YAG. Our plastic surgeons are trained in both ablative and non-ablative laser resurfacing.
Non-ablative laser treatments reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging by heating the lower layer of your skin. This causes your skin to produce more collagen, which reduces fine lines and wrinkles and makes your skin firmer. It doesn’t change your underlying skin color and it cannot fix sagging skin, but it can reduce redness caused by sun exposure or other conditions.
Lasers can be used to remove warts, moles, tattoos, birthmarks, and some acne scars. They can also be used to kill or remove some types of skin pre-cancers and cancers, especially in the esophagus (swallowing tube), lungs, colon, and bladder. They can also be used to help with some lung and colon cancers that can’t be reached by surgery, using a technique called photodynamic therapy.
With this technique, your doctor gives you a medicine that absorbs the light from the laser. Then, when the laser is aimed at a spot on your skin, the pigment in your hair or other tissue in that spot absorbs the light, which causes the hair follicle to get damaged and stop producing more hair. This usually takes two to six sessions.