Weekly pulsed dye laser successfully clears port-wine birthmarks in infants

Key takeaways:

• Researchers examined if more frequent pulsed dye laser (PDL) treatments increased efficacy in clearing port-wine birthmarks.
• All 10 infants had near total or total clearance following weekly PDL treatments.

Port-wine birthmarks in infants were nearly all cleared with weekly pulsed dye laser treatments, according to a study.

“Port-wine birthmarks (PWBs) are low-flow congenital vascular malformations that can present as an isolated lesion or, less commonly, as part of a syndrome,” Shirin Bajaj, MD, of the Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York and the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at New York University Langone Health, and colleagues wrote. “Untreated facial PWB and related facial disfigurement are associated with substantial psychosocial disturbance in both childhood and adulthood.”

While pulsed dye laser (PDL) therapy is the standard of care for PWB, some studies have shown more frequent treatments to be more effective.

This retrospective case series examined the records of 10 patients (median age, 4 weeks; six boys) with PWBs who received once-weekly PDL treatments at a 13 mm spot size.

Hair-bearing areas were not treated and were considered controls.

Two subjects had lesions smaller than 20 cm² and two had lesions between 20 cm² and 39 cm². Of the six with lesions larger than 40 cm², three had PWBs larger than 200 cm² with both facial and extra-facial involvement.

Following 2 months of weekly treatments, near total clearance (76%-95%) of the PWBs was recorded in six patients and total clearance (96%-100%) was recorded in one. Improvements between 51% and 75% were recorded in the remaining three patients, all of whom had lesions larger than 40 cm² and two having extra-facial and lower limb involvement.

Each of these three individuals did achieve near total clearance with additional treatments.

The median number of treatments to achieve near total clearance was eight, or 2 months of treatments.

No adverse events were reported.

“These results are compelling and warrant attention and further investigation,” the authors wrote.