If you have acne, many treatment options are available to you. Typically, severe acne treatment begins with prescription creams and antibiotics, according to MayoClinic.com. If you don’t respond to traditional acne treatment, you may want to consider laser treatment. Laser and light treatments are still new; however, as of 2010, doctors do not routinely prescribe them.
Types of Laser and Light Treatments
The best-known light therapy for acne is blue-light therapy, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves. Blue light works by killing the bacteria that cause acne. Blue light does not contain damaging ultraviolet light, as light therapies once did.
Pulsed light and heat energy therapy uses green light to kill bacteria and heat to shrink the sebaceous glands, responsible for sebum.
ALA plus light therapy is a two-step process where patients first apply the ALA medication, which increases their sensitivity to light. Then the patient removes the medication, and the doctor applies red or blue light therapy to the acne.
A diode laser can destroy sebaceous glands without harming the outer layer of skin.
Procedures for Laser and Light Treatments
Patients receive blue-light therapy in increments, typically eight 15-minute sessions over a four-week period.
With pulsed light and heat energy therapy, patients receive two treatments per week for four weeks.
With the diode laser, patients saw a reduction in acne after one treatment. By the third treatment, their acne had decreased by 83 percent.
Side Effects
Side effects of blue-light therapy include temporary changes in skin pigmentation, swelling in the treated areas, and dryness.
With the ALA plus light therapy treatment, the patient’s skin will be very sensitive to the sun for 48 hours. The use of red light in this therapy produces temporary darkening of the skin and inflammation of the hair follicles.
The diode laser is a painful treatment, but patients seemed to tolerate it when a doctor first applied a topical anesthetic. Patients can also expect to have temporary redness and swelling at the treatment sites.
Success
Results on a small group of patients showed success with blue-light therapy. However, in the long term, this treatment may not be better than using a topical anti-bacterial cream, according to the Acne Net website. Plus, the studies are simply too small to make any valid conclusions.
Pulsed light and heat energy therapy appears promising in a small 19-patient study, as reported on the Acne Net website. They conclude, based on that small study, that this technology is safe and effective.
Researchers conclude that blue light therapy, when used with ALA, may be suitable, but red light is not.
Success is promising with the diode laser. In one 19-patient study, every patient saw a reduction in acne.
More Research Needed
Although laser and light treatments show promise for treating acne, too little is known about these technologies. Clinicians need to conduct more studies to perfect these treatments, according to the Acne Net website. Researchers need to identify which type of therapy is best for which patient; evaluate the effectiveness of each therapy in larger patient groups; determine the long-term effects of laser and light treatments; and assess whether the results persist after treatment ends.
