Wow, I am finally jumping into the world of blogging. Considering how much I like to talk and how excited I am when I discover new dermatologic information, this should be a lot of fun! The challenge will be to keep it brief.
I have many thoughts to share after the recent American Society for Dermatologic Surgery’s annual meeting. I felt like I was attending a class reunion. Most of the presentations and conversations were with the derm docs that have experienced the evolution of cosmetic dermatology with me. Sclerotherapy and chemical peeling started the interest for me, and then lasers, lumescent liposuction, botox, laser resurfacing, skin tightening and now fillers. There has certainly been considerable refinements in technique and equipment in all of these areas.
There was a huge and expensive learning curve where technology was early and sounded a lot better than it delivered. I think the message of this meeting to all of us was to renew our pledge as physicians to evidence based medicine and not to the newest promise for easy rejuvenation and return on investment.
We had considerable discussion on split face study, blinded observation, statistical significance, safety and risk, both short and long term. There was an “eye opening” demonstration on the existence of camera based improvement in before and after photos caused by the tilt of the head, the shadows, the lightening, make up etc.
Conclusion: photos are very hard to repeat exactly, so buyers beware.
Bottom line? It is our responsibility as the specialist of the skin, to interpret the large amount of information and protect our patients from unsafe, poorly studied sham products and procedures.
More later,
Dr. Ann
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
