LA&HA - Journal of the Laser and Health Academy, volume: 2023, number: 1

LA&HA - Journal of the Laser and Health Academy
Volume: 2023 | number: 1
ISSN (web): 1855-9921

Dry Molecular Cooling (DMC™) in Laser Aesthetics and Dermatology

Jure Košir, Jernej Kukovič, Neja Gerdovič, Urška Kanduč, Matjaž Lukač
Pages: onlineFirst

Skin cooling is often used during laser treatments in aesthetics and dermatology to avoid or minimize patient discomfort and skin damage. All currently used cooling methods have certain disadvantages, such as having to be in contact with the skin, not being fast or continuous enough, or posing a risk of cryo-injury. The commonly used non-contact methods include cryogen spray cooling (CSC) and forced cold air cooling (CAC).

In this paper, a novel non-contact skin cooling method is presented that is based on dry molecular cooling (DMC™). DMCT™ improves upon the currently used methods, with some of the following advantages:

  • The maximal cooling rate of DMC is significantly faster in comparison with CAC.
  • DMC is characterized by a self-regulating feature of the evaporating water molecules, which limits the lowest skin temperature to about 16°C. The DMC cooling, therefore, avoids the risks of over-cooling posed by the CAC and especially by the CSC method.
  • As opposed to CSC spray droplets, the DMC’s water droplets deposited over the skin persist on the skin for longer time periods. The prolonged passive post-cooling by DMC acts in a similar manner as other cryo-protective measures in medicine, including therapeutic hypothermia in cardiac arrest or cerebral ischemia. For example, the sooner and longer a burn is cooled with cold running water, the smaller the impact of the injury will be. Clinically, this soothing effect has been observed to result in milder or no edema within first 10-20 minutes following the treatment, and in milder or no erythema within several hours following the treatment.

 

Key words: dry molecular cooling, DMC™, cryogen spray cooling, cold air cooling, alexandrite laser, Nd:YAG laser, thermal imaging.

Dry Molecular Cooling (DMC™) in Laser Aesthetics and Dermatology