Dermabrasion Research

Dermabrasion is a form of surgical treatment for skin scars and wrinkles, among other superficial skin conditions. It consists of scraping off the upper layers of the skin to create a smoother surface. It is usually done under local anesthesia and recovery can take up to 10 days or so.

The healing skin under the ointment or dressing will appear pink during the first few weeks and should be kept clean and moist to ensure optimal healing. The main goal of this procedure was to treat acne and surgical scars, wrinkles and cosmetic smoothing of the facial skin.

The most commonly used tools are portable hand-held dermabrader units that spin up to 35,000 rpm. with attached diamond stones, fine wire brushes or toothed wheels. Surgical expertise and precision are essential to achieve the desired results.

HeyIamond microdermabrasion, peeling cosmetic. Image credit: tcsaba / ShutterstockI

Dermabrasion vs. Electroscraping

Dermabrasion has been compared with electrocautery regarding the effectiveness and risks of these procedures for scar improvement. There is no statistically significant difference between them in these aspects, however, the latter requires much less time and causes much less bleeding. Electrocautery appears to be a preferable alternative in many cases.

Dermasanding

Another variation of dermabrasion to reduce the depth of surgical scars has been based on the use of sterile sandpaper compared to motorized diamond dermabrasion. Sandpaper is safe and simple to obtain, plus it’s much less expensive. Both methods were shown to be equally effective in 80% of patients according to one study, with well over half of them experiencing noticeable improvement. Various parameters such as contour readjustment, scar visibility, time required for re-epithelial growth and pigmentation changes were taken into account when evaluating the results. The remaining 20% of patients failed to show a positive outcome after either procedure.

Diamond Fraise vs. Skin scraping with a wire brush

Studies comparing these two conventional methods when used to treat photoaged skin have shown a good result in removing the lesions of actinic keratosis, wrinkles and lenticulosis, both clinically and histologically. Thus, any method could be chosen to improve collagen synthesis in the treatment of photodamage in the skin.

Dermabrasion laser versus fractionated carbon dioxide

When used as a single treatment for surgical scar revision, the fractionated CO2 laser results in less redness and bleeding as well as less swelling at 1 week, 1 month and 3 months compared to dermabrasion. It is therefore safer and associated with a shorter recovery time, while being just as effective in terms of aesthetic improvement. Laser resurfacing has replaced dermabrasion in many cosmetic applications.

Clinical Improvement with newer dressings versus conventional dressings

Dressing of abrasion wound with a conventional dressing has been compared with the use of Omiderm, which is a hydrophilic copolymer membrane. Another option is to use a biosynthetic occlusive dressing that requires little care and significantly reduces recovery times by up to 50%.

Newest Dermabrasion Applications

Dermabrasion for acne scars is a widely popular procedure, but recently there has been renewed interest in the utility of this procedure to complement various facial plastic surgery procedures on the head and neck.

Dermabrasion has not been shown to have any effectiveness in reducing the risk of skin cancer (non-melanoma type) with current data in human studies, possibly because the malignant change starts deep in the hair follicles that are not touched during this procedure.