Vascular lasers show promise in treating port wine stains

Vascular lasers treatment can achieve excellent results with port wine stains (PWS) although multiple treatment sessions are needed to do so, according to a study.

In this 25-year double-blinded retrospective chart review of 129 patients diagnosed with

PWS, a total of 4141 laser treatment sessions were reviewed and improvement scores and color were evaluated. A total of 1070 photographic records were reviewed

Each patient underwent a median of 49 sessions. After 6 sessions, 53% of patients achieved statistically significant improvement, although none achieved complete clearance.

“Due to the nonuniform treatments, we could not evaluate the efficacy of each laser type,” the authors noted. “However, this study illustrates the outcomes of a real-world setting in which various laser types were selected specifically for each patient to obtain the best result.”

Reference
Lekwuttikarn R, Pimsiri A, Somsak T. Long-term follow-up outcomes of laser-treated port wine stain patients: A double-blinded retrospective study. J Cosmet Dermatol. 2023;doi: 10.1111/jocd.15727. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36950802.