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Geronemus receives inaugural Vic Narurkar innovations award
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The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery awarded Roy G. Geronemus, MD, as its inaugural recipient of the Vic Narurkar, MD, Innovations in Aesthetic Dermatology Lectureship Award.
Geronemus, founder of the Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York, is a pioneer in innovative skin treatments with lasers and has developed laser techniques for the treatment of birthmarks, according to an ASDS press release.
“I had the opportunity to work on one of the first pulsed dye lasers in the world,” Geronemus said during his speech at the ASDS annual meeting in Chicago. “At that time, we had no idea what it would do, and there were a lot of questions: Did it work, was it safe, can you treat children or infants?”
Since those early days, Geronemus and colleagues have published many papers in this area, dramatically growing the body of evidence in the field.
“We proved we could treat children and teenagers and began to look at other types of issues,” he said. “We began to deal with laser treatments and treatment intervals. We tried pursuing treating infants. We explored efficacy, pain and anesthesia and the need for multiple treatments.”
In March, Geronemus and colleagues published results in JAMA Dermatology of 197 infants with port-wine stains who began laser treatment during infancy without general anesthesia. They achieved dramatic clearing with close to 25% of patients yielding 100% skin clearance. More than 100 of the patients were referred before aged 3 months.
“Our goal is done by 1 [years old],” he said. “These kids will never have to deal with the issue of knowing they had a birthmark, nor deal with social stigmata of having a birthmark.”
Another area of interest for Geronemus is pigmented lesions and tattoo removal, having worked in this area since the 1990s.
He said he two dogs are named after his favorite lasers, Ruby and Fraxis.
“There’s a lot of unique things that you can do with these lasers. They can remove large tattoos, green ink and yellow ink — which we couldn’t do before — and eyeliner tattoos,” Geronemus said.
Future innovations in pigmented lesions and tattoos include acoustic technology to enhance tattoo resolution, femtosecond lasers, in addition to a spatially selective scanning laser, which he said he is particularly excited about.
“I’m also excited about not only treating acne but curing it. There is new technology under development that may do that,” he said. “You’ll see more lasers in medical dermatology. All dermatologists will have to use lasers to treat their patients appropriately.”
Geronemus also said he is anticipating laser-assisted drug deliver for nonmelanoma and inflammatory disease and nano-pulse stimulation technology in the future.
New to ASDS, the Vic Narurkar, MD, Innovations in Aesthetic Dermatology Lectureship honors the legacy of Vic Narurkar, MD, whose death was a tremendous loss affecting the dermatology community, according to the press release. – by Abigail Sutton
References:
Geronemus RG. Innovations in aesthetic dermatology lectureship award. Presented at: American Society for Dermatologic Surgery Annual Meeting; Oct. 24-27, 2019; Chicago.
Jeon H, et al. JAMA Dermatol. 2019;doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2018.5249.
Disclosure: Geronemus reports he serves on advisory boards for Allergan, Cynosure, Cytrellis, Syneron/Candela and Valeant; is an investigator for Allergan, ArchiMedus, Cutera, Cynosure, Cytrellis, Endo, Galderma, Kerastem, Lutronic, Merz, Miramar, Revance, Sciton, Sienna Labs, Syneron/Candela, Suneva and Valeant; and is a stockholder in Cytrellis.