A new light-based treatment technology, Aesthera Photopneumatic Therapy (PPx™) promises to change all that for the better. Introduced in early 2005 by Aesthera Corporation, a California-based company that develops, manufactures and markets light-based aesthetic treatment systems, FDA-approved PPx therapy is the first technology to combine pneumatic energy (pressure) with broadband light.

By using a handheld “treatment tip” that gently stretches the treatment area and pulls it up into the tip, PPx therapy delivers energy more efficiently to unwanted pigment, hair and veins, reducing the amount of overall energy required. This simultaneous reduction and concentration of energy means that more energy is concentrated on the target area and the surrounding normal tissue is protected, resulting in a more efficient, pain-free treatment.

“It is painless,” said Nancy Boyden, ARNP, of Olympic Surgical Associates. “There is no need for lidocaine cream for numbing the skin pretreatment, and it leaves the skin looking smooth after treatment. All the technology is contained within the filter tips.”

Olympic Surgical Associates, which has offices in Port Orchard and Gig Harbor, has been using Intense Pulse Light therapies for five years. The clinic added PPx therapy to its offerings several months ago. It is one of a small handful of clinics in the greater Puget Sound area that have the technology, and the only clinic on the Kitsap Peninsula that offers it.

While not a true laser — lasers use monochromatic light, whereas PPx therapy and other light-based systems use broadband light — the applications are nearly identical.

“[PPx therapy] is used for hair removal, photo facials, treating sun-damaged skin, removing brown spots, pregnancy mask, and facial veins,” said Boyden. “It also treats diffuse redness of the skin which can be caused from the sun or rosacea.”

As with older laser and light-based treatments, multiple sessions are often required with PPx therapy in order to achieve the desired results. Individual session times, however, are much less time consuming, due to the lack of pain and a large treatment tip that can cover wide areas in a short period of time.

“Since this laser is painless, treatment time is cut down quite a bit,” said Boyden. “To treat a man’s back for hair removal, it can take two hours with the old technology. With the new, it takes 20 minutes. To do a photo facial with the old technology, one would have to pretreat with a numbing cream, but with [PPx] there is no need since there is no pain.”

Although the severe redness and crusting that are common after treatments with other light-based technologies don’t occur with PPx therapy, patients need to be wary of sun exposure after a PPx therapy treatment, as treated skin is photo sensitive for about two weeks.

“Plenty of sunscreen must be used and the individual cannot be tanned,” said Boyden.

At Olympic Surgical Associates, treatment costs remain the same, whether patients choose the new PPx therapy technology or the older Intense Pulse Light technology.

“Whether one comes in wanting to use the new or the old, the cost is the same,” said Boyden. “In that way if someone comes in and uses the new [treatment], but goes tanning and needs a second treatment they can use the old [treatment] as it is FDA cleared to treat darker skin. We do not penalize people for having a life outside of their treatments!”.