Safe, Easy and … Ineffective

Pulsed dye lasers don’t help acne

Jeffrey Orringer Photo: Paul Jaronski

Laser therapy for acne is an appealing treatment: no messy creams, no drugs and minimal risk of side effects. Unfortunately, there also appears to be no benefit, at least with pulsed dye laser therapy, according to Jeffrey Orringer, M.D. (Residencies 1995, 2000), clinical assistant professor of dermatology in the U-M Medical School.

Orringer conducted a clinical trial with 40 patients who were randomly assigned to receive laser therapy on either the left or right side of their face. Results of the study, which were published in the June 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that pulsed dye laser therapy was not effective in treating acne.

“This is not an indictment of all laser therapy for acne,” Orringer says. “But we need to study these devices thoroughly before recommending them to physicians, who are spending a lot of money to buy the lasers, and more importantly to patients, who may be seeing no significant clinical benefits.”

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Read an expanded version of this story: www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2004/pulsed.htm

For patient information on acne: www.med.umich.edu/1libr/aha/aha_acne_crs.htm