Dr. Paz Cerdá Escar is a dermatologist and belongs to Top Doctors, the select circle of top doctors in Spain. She will explain the treatment of pigmented lesions with laser.
What are pigmented lesions and why do they appear?
Pigmented skin lesions are skin spots that appear on the face, décolleté, back of hands, especially in people with high sun exposure throughout their lives. They are caused by an alteration of the melanocytes, of the function of these melanocytes to form the pigment that are the cells that we have to give us the color of our skin.
Some people are prone, what is the cause?
Yes, there are people who are prone, especially people with low skin phototypes such as 1 and 2 who are blond, with light eyes… The cause is permanent sun exposure throughout the year, especially in photoexposed areas such as the face, back of the hands and décolleté. Another factor that we have not mentioned are hormonal factors or hormonal changes that can occur throughout life, for example pregnancy, taking contraceptives, menopause, which cause the skin cells that produce the pigment to malfunction, to function strangely and to form skin spots.
What is the treatment and what is the aftercare?
The best treatment for skin spots, what we call solar lentigines or senile lentigines, is laser treatment. The laser burns or treats only the spot without burning the surrounding skin. As a complement to this laser treatment we can and sometimes we must use depigmentation treatments that can be used before, during and after laser treatment. And we should always use a total sunscreen which is something that should be in our head, in our mind as a daily use cream to prevent skin spots and skin aging.