Hyperpigmentation With Suneel Chilukuri, MD

In an interview with Dermatology Times®, Suneel Chilukuri, MD, FAAD, FACMS, founder and director of Refresh Dermatology in Houston, Texas, discusses key pearls from his session, “Treatment of Hyperpigmentation With Lasers,” presented at the 2023 South Beach Symposium meeting in Miami Beach, Florida.

Transcript:

Suneel Chilukuri, MD: Hi, I'm Suneel Chilukuri from Refresh Dermatology in Houston, Texas. I'm live from South Beach Symposium in beautiful Miami, and I'm just sharing some pearls from what we talked about what's new in advances in hyperpigmentation? What can we do today that we never could before? Well, we see that topicals are coming out with really scientific data, we know that cysteamine has been out for a little bit. When you combine cysteamine along with heparin sulfate, we find there's even less inflammation and decreased pigmentation. What else can we do? We know there are several devices that are out there that are safe for all skin types. One is Aerolase, it's been out for about five years, six years now, we see it's quite effective in breaking up the pigment as well as improving the vascularity that can sometimes flare your melasma. We have something called AviClear. So if you have pigmentation from acne and things like that, you can decrease the acne itself. And then we can use some of these other devices to improve the pigmentation. Finally, we have pulse wave radiofrequency microneedling. With this, it's remarkable because we can change the length of time using a bipolar or needle to decrease the inflammation and decrease that loss of water through the epidermis, while also improving the overall health of the skin. So combining all three things, we find that patients have less and less pigmentation. They're staying pigment free, oftentimes for a year or longer.

Dermatology Times®: What do you enjoy about South Beach Symposium?

Chilukuri: In terms of SBS, why do I love coming? You get real world-class faculty and you get access to everybody. So you have the Doris Day’s, we have Michael Gold, we have David Goldberg, we have people who are actually doing all the research in this field that are easily accessible. More important, the cutting-edge technologies that we talk about are shared and embraced in this office. What we also find is that we have live demonstrations, it's the first time there are going to be 20 live demonstrations. So, if you're curious about something that's coming out, come join us in South Beach, I think you'd be pleasantly surprised. So, I hope that you'll join us next year at South Beach Symposium. Suneel Chilukuri, Refresh Dermatology.

Transcript edited for clarity