Acne Scar Treatment

Scarring will occur wherever multiple layers of the skin have been affected and the goal is to improve the appearance either by disguising it, relocating it, or minimising its prominence.                                                                                                                          

The objective of acne scar treatment is to give the skin a more acceptable physical appearance. Total restoration of the skin, to the way it looked before you had acne, is often not possible, but scar treatment does usually improve the appearance of your skin. There are different types of acne scars including:

Ice-Pick Scars - usually small, with a somewhat jagged edge and steep sides—like wounds from an ice pick. They may be shallow or deep, and may be hard or soft to the touch.

Depressed Fibrotic Scars - usually quite large, with sharp edges and steep sides. The base of these scars is firm to the touch. Ice-pick scars may evolve into depressed fibrotic scars over time.

Soft Scars (superficial or deep) - soft to the touch, they have gently sloping rolled edges that merge with normal skin. They are usually small, and either circular or linear in shape.

Atrophic Macules - usually fairly small when they occur on the face, but may be a centimeter or larger on the body. They are soft, often with a slightly wrinkled base, and may be bluish in appearance due to blood vessels lying just under the scar. Over time, these scars change from bluish to ivory white in colour in white-skinned people, and become much less obvious.

Follicular Macular Atrophy - more likely to occur on the chest or back of a person with acne. These are small, white, soft lesions, often barely raised above the surface of the skin—somewhat like whiteheads that didn’t fully develop. This condition is sometimes also called "perifollicular elastolysis." The lesions may persist for months to years.

Photos courtesy of Facial Plastic Surgery Network (USA)

Various treatments are available and the type of treatment selected should be the one that is best for you in terms of your type of skin, the cost, what you want the treatment to accomplish, and the possibility that some types of treatment may result in more scarring if you are very susceptible to scar formation. The most common forms of treatment are:

Collagen Injection - Collagen, a normal substance of the body, is injected under the skin to "stretch" and "fill out" certain types of superficial and deep soft scars.

Autologous Fat Transfer - Fat is taken from another site on your own body and prepared for injection into your skin. The fat is injected beneath the surface of the skin to elevate depressed scars.

Dermabrasion - Under local anesthetic, a high-speed brush or fraise is used to remove surface skin and alter the contour of scars. Superficial scars may be removed altogether, and deeper scars may be reduced in depth.

Micro-Dermabrasion - Rather than a high-speed brush, micro-dermabrasion uses aluminum oxide crystals passing through a vacuum tube to remove surface skin. Only the very surface cells of the skin are removed, so no additional wound is created. Multiple procedures are often required but scars may not be significantly improved.

Laser Treatment - Lasers of various wavelength and intensity may be used to recontour scar tissue and reduce the redness of skin around healed acne lesions.

Skin Surgery - Some ice-pick scars may be removed by "punch" excision of each individual scar. In this procedure each scar is excised down to the layer of subcutaneous fat; the resulting hole in the skin may be repaired with sutures or with a small skin graft. Subcision is a technique in which a surgical probe is used to lift the scar tissue away from unscarred skin, thus elevating a depressed scar.

Skin Grafting - Necessary under certain conditions, for example, sometimes dermabrasion unroofs massive and extensive tunnels (also called sinus tracts) caused by inflammatory reaction to sebum and bacteria in sebaceous follicles. Skin grafting may be needed to close the defect of the unroofed sinus tracts.

A Chemical Peel will also help to improve the look of acne-scarred skin.

See also   TCA Peel   IPL    Glycolic Peel   Photo Dynamic Therapy

Collagen Induction Therapy

Please ask your Doctor for further information.