The American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery’s Annual Meeting was held in Chicago last weekend. Surgeons from all over the world attended the meeting and I was asked to participate on a number of panels concerning injectable filler materials, Botox and minimally invasive procedures such as mini facelifts and browlifts using the much less invasive techniques employing the new Bioglue. A hot topic of interest is the new advancement in fractionated resurfacing which has moved well ahead of the older Fraxel device – the Active and Deep FX fractionated device by Lumenis

Employing a special computer generated scanning pattern and a high powered CO2 (carbon dioxide) laser, patients are able to dramatic results with skin tightening, improvement in spots and blemishes on the skin in face, neck, hands and chest. This new technology in our experience is giving patients the same or better results in one treatment that I have seen in photographs taking 4-6 Fraxel treatments. That is with only 3-5 days of “downtime” = redness, mild to moderate swelling and no pain!

The procedure is done in office with a topical anesthetic applied to the skin surface and our cool air device the Zimmer cooler.

Patients walk out with a special new cream Biofine from Johnson and Johnson that has really brought the healing time for most to under 5 days.

We are excited about this new technology and so are the patients who are searching for long term results with fine lines around the lips, eyelids and neck but don’t want the long down time of deep chemical peels or standard laser skin resurfacing. The treatment options available with this device include a laser minipeel, regional Active and Deep FX (for deeper lines) and full face, neck and other areas that can be performed in less than an hour in the office.