Combination therapies for photoaging: Dermatologists can customize combination therapies to treat sun-induced skin aging

Key Points

"The order of the treatments varies depending on the patient's symptoms and how greatly they are disturbed by them," says Dr. Narins.

Sun-induced skin aging, or photoaging, is a cumulative process, as is chronological aging.

Combination treatments

Photoaging can be treated in a variety of ways, and most patients need a combination of treatments, Dr. Narins says.

"If it is movement lines of the upper face, Botox (botulinum toxin type A, Allergan) would be used; if it is the volume loss of the skin, a filler or a combination of fillers would be used.

"If the surface of the patient's skin has become pigmented with both red marks from vascular lesions and brown marks from solar lentigo, and there is fine wrinkling and decreased tone, texture and reflectivity, resurfacing would have to be done," Dr. Narins says.

For the best possible nonsurgical result, dermatologists often have to treat all three components, Dr. Narins says.

Resurfacing is often used for photodamage, such as pigmentation changes, thinning of skin and lack of reflectivity.

"Many patients do not want any downtime at all, and if that is the case, dermatologists can do a series of intense pulsed light (IPL) treatments, which will diminish the red and the brown spots and tighten the skin a little with no recovery time," she says.

Disclosure: Dr. Narins has been a consultant or investigator for the following companies: Q-Med, Medicis, Dermik, Merz, ColBar LifeScience, OrthoNeutrogena Aesthetics, Contura, Allergan, Genzyme and Mentor, Stiefel, Revance and DDC Technologies. She owns stock in BioForm Medical.