Patients with facial telangiectasia who receive topical brimonidine following IPL treatment experience less postprocedure erythema with no reduction in efficacy. Anne‐Cathrine E. Vissing, Christine Dierickx, Katrine E. Karmisholt and Merete Haedersdal of Denmark, performed a randomized, two-center, single-blinded, split-face trial on 19 patients with facial telangiectasia. The patients were treated with adjuvant brimonidine and air‐cooling on one side of the face and air‐cooling alone (control) on the other. The brimonidine was applied at the end of each of three IPL‐treatments, performed at three-week intervals. Blinded evaluators measured erythema and edema (using five point scales) and IPL efficacy using photo evaluation. Red filter analysis provided objective erythema scores.
The researchers found that IPL treatment induced moderate-to-severe erythema after each treatment. Application of brimonidine reduced post-treatment erythema to baseline values compared to air‐cooling alone and the effects lasted for 24 hours after treatment. Application of brimonidine and air‐cooling reduced erythema 50% to 95% compared to a 9% to 28% reduction after air‐cooling alone. There was no difference in IPL‐induced edema.
At one‐month follow‐up, patients had 75% to 100% clearance in telangiectasia on both sides of the face. Seventy nine percent of patients preferred treatment with brimonidine.
The study was published in Lasers in Surgery and Medicine (online June 17, 2018)
Image: Brimonidine Structure
