8/03/07

According to David J. Goldberg, MD, JD, FAAD, clinical professor of dermatology and director of laser research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, new skin tightening technologies can safely and effectively treat sagging skin on the jowls, neck, arms, and stomach, as well as cellulite. Goldberg discussed the skin-tightening techniques at the American Academy of Dermatology’s Summer Academy Meeting 2007 in New York City.

“The monopolar radiofrequency (RF) technology, which was introduced 5 years ago, and which is credited as the first nonsurgical skin-tightening device, has been the catalyst for what is now an explosion in noninvasive skin tightening with different technologies and areas of the body that we can treat,” Goldberg says. “Originally used to lift the eyebrows, monopolar RF was found to be effective in tightening the jowls and neck area with its unique approach of cooling the outer layer of skin while heating the deeper layers to cause tightening. This basic principle is what shaped many of the latest skin-tightening technologies.”

A recent, unpublished study, led by Goldberg, found that a new unipolar, volumetric RF device could be used to treat cellulite.

“The best way to describe how this treatment works is to think of it as a blender-like effect on the skin, involving the ultrarapid rotation of molecules through the skin that generates heat,” Goldberg says. “The heat is dispersed to the surrounding tissue, allowing the deeper skin structures – where cellulite forms – to be effectively heated.”

Source: Newswise; August 1