Clinical Pilot Study of Intense Ultrasound Therapy to Deep Dermal Facial Skin and Subcutaneous Tissues

Abstract

In this first clinical study of intense ultrasound therapy to facial tissues, the intense ultrasound system allowed for the safe and well-tolerated placement of targeted, precise, and consistent thermal injury zones in the dermis and subcutaneous tissues with sparing of the epidermis.

Selective transcutaneous delivery of energy to porcine soft tissues using intense ultrasound (IUS)

“…The potential for using this device in treating the aging face is encouraging, and needs to be investigated further in human tissues [24][25][26]. …”

Ultrasound tightening of facial and neck skin: A rater-blinded prospective cohort study

“…Overall, selective coagulative change is effected within the focal region of the beam but other tissue proximal and distal to the focal region of the ultrasound field is preserved. [5][6][7][8][30][31][32][33][34] Notably, the intense ultrasound we investigated for skin tightening is different from ultrasound devices designed for lipolysis. The skin tightening ultrasound penetrates 4 to 5 mm into the facial skin and delivers focal, intense pulses (20-50 milliseconds long) that cause localized thermal injury (thermal coagulation zone ;1-mm 3 volume), and instigate the tissue repair cascade.…”

“…The pulse duration for each individual exposure ranged from 25 to 40 milliseconds. Prior work [5][6][7][8] in which the facial skin tissue was excised after exposure to the intense ultrasound device has shown that the zones of thermal coagulation are wedge shaped and are consistent in size and depth. In each case the epidermis was spared after ultrasound energy exposure.…”

“…These results have been previously reported in various contexts: in vitro and in vivo porcine with bioacoustic simulations 7 ; cadaver skin 6,8 ; and treatand-resect human clinical studies. 5 Photographic setup. A custom-designed Canfield photographic system (Canfield Scientific, Inc, Fairfield, NJ) was used for pretreatment and posttreatment photography of subjects' face and necks.…”

Patient satisfaction and efficacy of accent high-intensity focused ultrasound for face lifting

“…This can produce small, micro-thermal lesions at precise depths in the mid to deep reticular dermis up to the fibromuscular layer, causing thermally-induced contraction of collagen and tissue coagulation with subsequent collagenesis, while sparing the epidermis [17,18]. Recently a lot of concern about facial wrinkles has been created in the community.…”