Pulsed Dye Laser Versus Intense Pulse Light in the Early Intervention of Surgical Scars: A Retrospective Study

Pulse dye laser (PDL) and intense pulse light (IPL) have been applied in the early scar treatment to alleviate erythema, but no comparative analysis has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the two. This is a retrospective comparative study to assess whether PDL and IPL had the same efficacy in the early intervention of surgical linear scars.

We conducted a retrospective study on linear surgical scars which received two consecutive monthly sessions of PDL (n = 50) or IPL (n = 68) from January 2017 to December 2023. All interventions were initiated two weeks after the suture removal. Vancouver Scar Scale (VSS), the incidence of hypertrophic scars and Global Aesthetic Improvement Scale (GAIS) were measured at baseline and one month after the last treatment. Subgroup analysis was further performed on scars located in the face, neck and trunk.

There was no significant difference in the downregulation rate of VSS between PDL (36.6%±30.0%) and IPL (44.5%±33.3%) (P = 0.19). The incidence of hypertrophic scars was not significantly different between PDL (10%) and IPL (7.6%) (P = 0.61). There was no difference in GAIS (3.2±0.8 for PDL, 3.0±0.6 for IPL, P = 0.18). The subgroup analysis showed that the downregulation rate of VSS had statistical difference in the face (45.8%±29.1%), neck (10.4%±39.7%) and trunk (30.1%±31.9%) (P < 0.01).

PDL and IPL did not demonstrate notable difference in efficacy in the early intervention of surgical scars. Neither modality could prevent scar hypertrophy entirely. Anatomical locations of the scars correlated with the treatment outcome. Since this was a retrospective study with limited follow-up span, further validation is needed.

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