Photo-Dynamic Therapy (PDT)
Sun damaged skin is characterized by wrinkles, skin laxity, dullness, aging spots and textural roughenings referred to as actinic keratoses (AK). These skin changes are not a marker of ‘natural aging’ but of ‘InflammAging’ – good news they are preventable and reversible.
A heavy burden of AKs is associated with a significantly increased risk for developing skin cancer in your lifetime. Each AK has a 10% lifetime risk of degenerating into squamous cell cancer, a relatively aggressive skin cancer.
Photo-dynamic therapy is one of the most important and powerful treatments for reversing the accumulated signs of sun damage. It also is able to reduce your future potential for developing non-melanoma skin cancers like basal cell cancer and squamous cell cancer by 80%. That’s great news for those of us who love the outdoors but have paid the price with sun-damaged skin.
This highly corrective procedure can reverse up to 60% of AKs and pre-cancerous skin lesions with just one clinic treatment session. In more severe cases two treatments can be staged a few months apart to exact up to 80-90% reversal of sun damage. The silver lining of this corrective treatment is that it improves the look and feel of your skin as well. It leaves your skin healthier, with less burden of pre-cancerous disease but it also helps set the clock back on your skin’s appearance.
Treatments like liquid nitrogen, Effudex and Aldara are efficacious for treating focal lesions after they have developed – often with protracted periods of redness. The advantage of PDT is that it can treat larger areas such as an entire face or scalp in one treatment session – with a succinct and short down-time. It both reverses sun damage and significantly reduces your future risk for skin cancer.
Global treatment • One session • One down-time
This is one of Dr vanVliet’s favourite treatments for reversing sun-damage precisely because:
- One treatment session
- Ability to treat large treatment areas at once: face, scalp
- Its an organic process; we use light therapy to heal your skin
- One downtime of about a week
- Reduction of future development of non-melanoma skin cancers by 80%
- Restores skin health
- Silver lining: improved skin aesthetics: reduced pore size, smoother, clarity
- Aging spots / freckles
- Sun-damage
- Fine lines and wrinkles
- Redness / Rosacea
- Flushing
- Broken capillaries / facial vessels
- Enlarged Pores
- Unwanted facial hair
- Active acne
How its done
- Preparation of skin surface
- Application of photo-sensitizing agent : Metvix
- Incubation: the Metvix incubates for a variable amount of time: 1-3 hours
- Activation: we have 2 protocols for Light activation
- BBL Light technology / Red LED light
- Day Light activated: ideal during warmer weather with >12C
Ask your family physician for referral to have your initial consultation funded by MSP or refer yourself in and Dr vanVliet can assess the appropriateness of this treatment for you.
We can correct skin quality anywhere on the body but these are our most popular treatment
areas that can be chosen from, often in combination with one another:
- Face
- Neckline
- Decolletege
- Back of hands
We realize that your time is valuable to you. There are treatments we offer that pair beautifully with BBL treatments. Combining treatments can help you save on time and often there are some cost savings when bundling treatments together. We also see more dramatic results, and
faster, with combination treatments.
- Spring Skin Glow: This is a signature treatment that combines the exfoliation, hydrating and enriching benefits of a HydraFacial MD treatment with your BBL treatment to buff your skin and give it that instant glow.
- Dermaplaning: Exfoliation with a specialty blade scrapes away dead skin cells and vellous
hair (peach fuzz) to brighten and smooth the skin surface. - Injectables: Toxins and Fillers
- BBL and PDT: An excellent combination treatment for rough, heavily sun-damaged skin.
- Combine BBL treatment regions: You can treat face, neck and décolletage and / or hands all in one treatment session.
BBL correct is an easily tolerated and safe procedure that in most cases incurs minimal to no down-time. The treated area may be red and flushed and for most patients this usually dissipates in a few hours.
Most people continue on with their normal day to day activities – this can easily be a lunch time treatment for you. We recommend wearing a protective broad-spec SPF >30 to protect your investment and your skin health. We also recommend being gentle with your skin and not picking or scratching at it.
In heavily sun-damaged skin or with patients with moderate to severe rosacea the down-time may be more prolonged with swelling and redness over a few days. We can usually predict this and will guide you as best as possible regarding what you can expect following your treatment.
Patients with prominent pigmentation may notice that their treated brown areas become temporarily darker for 10-14 days as the body rids itself of the targeted pigment. They gradually flake off and fade, leaving your skin clear and smooth. With subsequent treatments, as the skin improves, the down-time reverts to minimal to none.
After a series of BBL treatments most of our patients see improvements in nearly every aspect of their skin. We recommend an initial series of 3 to 5 monthly BBL treatments until you have achieved your desired skin improvements. Having 2 to 3 treatments annually as maintenance will be effective at slowing down the aging process of your skin and will leave your skin healthy, vibrant and clear.
Conclusions
From a Stanford peer reviewed study have confirmed that BBL treatment can restore your skin cell gene expression pattern to resemble that of younger skin cells. Hands down, BBL is easily one of the most effective, no down-time procedures in aesthetic medicine to prevent and reverse skin aging, restoring your skin to its naturally radiant and clear
self.
