Early Use of CO2 Lasers on Surgical Scars Bests Silicone Gel Treatment

Early treatment of surgical scars with a super-pulsed fractional C02 laser shows promise, new research suggests.

The study, which appears in Lasers in Surgery and Medicine (LSM), found that laser treatment of elective surgery scars within the first weeks resulted in improved texture and pigment compared with standard silicone gel treatment.

The research was selected as Editor’s Choice in the August 2017 issue of LSM.

“Applications using fractional CO2 lasers, widely used to treat the sequelas of acne, for rejuvenation, stretch marks, and hypertrophic scars, have proven to be promising procedures in achieving the quality of the final aesthetics of the scar,” says lead author Luiz Ronaldo Alberti MD, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, in a news release.

“This manuscript compared the aesthetic quality of scars in two groups of patients. One group was treated with super-pulsed fractional CO2 laser applications in contrast with the other group that used only the silicone gel on the scar after plastic surgery. We demonstrated, according to the Vancouver scale, that the early use of the fractional CO2 laser can be used safely, to improve the aesthetic quality of scars from elective surgeries in the second and in the sixth months.”