Patient experience

The patient experience was evaluated using multiple choice questionnaires.

All subjects experienced mild to moderate oedema and erythema as an immediate response to the treatment. Both oedema and erythema were resolved after one hour post-treatment. No unexpected adverse events were detected or reported. Eighty percent of patients reported the treatment as comfortable (no discomfort at all) and 17% reported minimal discomfort during the treatment. None of the patients experienced burns, skin breakdown, or scarring. No patients reported any pain during the study.

When asked at the end of the last session whether treatment met expectations, 67% of patients responded ‘yes’, and 27% responded ‘yes to some extent’.

When asked at the end of the last session their subjective opinion of the cosmetic change they experienced, 54% reported an improvement greater than 50% (NB. two patients did not answer this question).

When asked whether they would recommend the skin tightening treatment to their colleagues and friends, 67% of patients answered ‘definitely yes’ and 20% answered ‘yes’.

All but one patient believed that the treatment had a noticeable tightening effect (one patient did not answer this question as she could not evaluate), with 55% of patients experiencing a noticeable wrinkle reduction (three patients did not answer this question). All but one patient believed the treatment had a noticeable improvement in skin texture (one patient did not answer this question), and that the treatment improved the contour of their face and neck (one patient did not answer this question).

Physician evaluation

No complications were recorded during the treatment sessions.

Eighteen patients had undergone a skin tightening treatment with a different technology in the past; 82% of these patients reported the same or better result with the EndyMed Pro system (this question was not answered by one of the patients).

The author was satisfied with the safety of the EndyMed Pro system, both with the ease of performing the skin tightening treatment procedure and with the duration of the treatment procedure while using the EndyMed Pro system.

Overall, the author was satisfied with the skin tightening improvement obtained in 29 of the patients. When evaluated 3 months after the last session, all patients showed significant improvement in skin laxity; 14% of the patients showed more than a 76% improvement in skin laxity; 38% of patients showed a 51–75% improvement; and 45% of patients showed a 26–50% improvement.

Discussion

Energy-based devices — specifically RF devices — have rapidly evolved over the last decade and are now taking a central role in the treatment of multiple aesthetic and medical skin conditions10. One unique and important feature of RF-based systems is their ability to heat large volumes of dermal and hypodermal tissue, regardless of skin type or colour.

The intrinsic disadvantage of current RF systems is the low volume of dermal heating in bipolar systems or the painful treatment in monopolar systems. Monopolar and bipolar RF systems must be used at a higher power in order to increase volumetric heating in the dermis.

Skin temperature is dependent on the energy in use and the size of the treatment area. The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an alternative protocol from the standard recommended by the manufacturer. In this alternative protocol, the author used higher energy on a larger area so that the proportions remained.

The results show that the protocol suggested in this article provides an alternative treatment, using higher energies and a larger treatment area. This protocol was both time-saving for both physician and patient, and also showed very good skin improvement and a high satisfaction rate.

The EndyMed Pro multisource RF is the latest technology offered for body and face non-ablative skin tightening, and this article presents, for the first time, clinical data from a study using a unique treatment protocol of multisource RF skin tightening. Between 4 and 6 weeks after treatment, dermal changes were noted, including significant improvement in skin texture, and a reduction in wrinkles and skin laxity.

In this study, all treatments were performed without any anaesthesia, and yet were regarded by the majority of patients as pain-free. In fact, no patients considered the procedure intolerable at any point.

Conclusions

Based on the results, the author believes the EndyMed Pro facial tightening treatment protocol, which divides the face into two sections rather than five, using the maximum energy, provides an exciting new option for effective facial skin tightening for skin laxity, without discomfort and downtime. Further study will support the results and conclusions of this article.